On Dec. 9, the National Basketball Association crowned the champion of the league’s first in-season tournament of the NBA Cup to the Los Angeles Lakers.
With the bonus payout for players being $200k for second place and $100k for third place, this tournament had lower-wage players working for their new check.
The Lakers faced the Indiana Pacers in the championship game on Saturday night, with the game being neck and neck. Tyrese Haliburton and Bennedict Mathurin both had 20 points, but could not catch up to Anthony Davis’ 41 points and LeBron James’s 24 points.
For the Lakers to get to this point, they had to beat the Phoenix Suns and the New Orleans Pelicans. The Pacers beat the Boston Celtics and the Milwaukee Bucks while being the underdog in both games.
The in-season tournament is the NBA’s newest high-stake competition, made up of six group stages based on the regular season of the previous year. Adam Silver, Commissioner of the NBA, introduced the tournament as a response to the NBA’s very low regular-season television ratings, intending to increase viewership and intensity during the regular season.
On top of receiving the NBA Cup medals and trophy, each of the Lakers players will receive a $500K bonus. The location of the game was Las Vegas, and with speculation surrounding the NBA’s expansion to that region, many claim the location was chosen because of its neutral setting alongside being a test trial for the city’s first-ever NBA game.
