A new basketball season means everyone’s favorite in-season tournament, the NBA Cup is also soon about to begin.
The Lakers will be playing in West Group B, and on Wednesday, the league announced the full slate of games for every team, including the Lakers.
Los Angeles will begin their NBA Cup journey facing the Grizzlies on the road.
Here’s a look at their four games:
- Oct. 31, 6:30 pm PT – Lakers at Grizzlies (Prime)
- Nov. 14, 5 pm PT – Lakers vs. Pelicans
- Nov. 25, 8 pm PT – Lakers vs. Clippers (NBC)
- Nov. 28, 7 pm PT – Lakers vs. Mavericks (Prime)
Starting against Ja Morant and the Grizzlies should be a fun game, but the most compelling matchup in the group stage will be between
the Lakers and the Mavericks.
This will likely be Luka Dončić‘s first matchup against his former team this season. It provides an excellent opportunity for Luka to get some revenge on Dallas by destroying them in the NBA Cup while rocking the Lakers City Edition jerseys.
The Lakers-Clippers game on NBC will also be entertaining. The two teams are local to LA and with a national stage, that game will undoubtedly have more buzz around it than most regular-season contests this year.
The Pelicans matchup is the least enticing one for the Lakers. With Anthony Davis no longer on the team, there isn’t any rivalry there and New Orleans has been sitting near the bottom of the Western Conference for a while now.
Still, in the NBA Cup, every game matters.
Only the top team in each group will automatically advance to the quarterfinals. The other two wild card spots will go to the team from each conference with the best record in group play games that finished second in their group.
Los Angeles won the inagural NBA Cup back in 2023, but failed to advance out of the group stage last season.
Hopefully, head coach JJ Redick can get the Lakers to perform better this time around and bring the NBA Cup back to Los Angeles where it belongs.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.
