Good news, Los Angeles Lakers fans, the Lakers say the slippery court drama is officially over, and just in time. After days of player concern, especially from Luka Doncic, the team expects the repaired NBA Cup floor to be ready for the Dec. 10 Quarterfinals against the San Antonio Spurs.
Marc Stein reported on The Stein Line that the Lakers “expect to have their NBA Cup floor repaired in time for the Dec. 10 quarterfinal game they’re hosting against San Antonio.” He also noted that the court was pulled before Friday’s game and sent out for quick repairs after multiple players complained about how unsafe it felt during their game against the Los Angeles Clippers.
Even though the Lakers still pulled off the victory, all anyone could talk about afterward was how many players kept slipping and how dangerous it was. Especially Doncic, who, despite the fact that he was upset about the situation, still put up a monster stat line of 43 points, nine rebounds, 13 assists, and seven triples beyond the arc. Even with those numbers, he did not hide his frustration.
“Change the courts, please,” he said. “It’s just slippery. It’s dangerous… I slipped a lot of times, and you could see a lot of players slipped.” At the end of the day, you need to keep your star player happy, and when that star player is basically saying the court is not up to NBA standards, it is going to get fixed fast, and that is exactly what happened.
Not Doncic's first tango with the NBA Cup floors
Interestingly enough, Doncic is not new to this conversation. Last year, back when he was still with the Dallas Mavericks, he complained about another NBA Cup court being unstable and having “dead spots.” So when he raises concerns, he speaks from experience, not from exaggeration.
Rui Hachimura noticed the problem right away as well and was also not shy to chime in on the matter. “That was bad…I felt it right away when I was warming up. It just felt weird. Just like oily, slippery. Everybody was on the floor, literally. Every second.”
Now that the floor is no longer a storyline, the Lakers can finally shift their full focus to the Spurs. For a team with the kind of rhythm-heavy style the Lakers rely on, especially with Doncic orchestrating for most of the game, peace of mind underfoot matters more than people realize.