The Los Angeles Lakers and Dallas Mavericks will play a preseason exhibition game in Las Vegas.
This is a decision made not by the NBA, but by the two teams that completed one of the most controversial trades in sports history just months ago when the Mavericks dealt Luka Dončić to the Lakers.
Since that trade, the Lakers flamed out of the first round of the playoffs, and the Mavericks won the NBA Draft lottery. Dallas will presumably select Duke phenom Cooper Flagg, who will be immediately handed the torch that Dončić carried as the team’s franchise player and long-term hope for championship success.
Will Luka Dončić actually play in October’s Lakers-Mavericks exhibition in Las Vegas? (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
(Allen J. Schaben via Getty Images)
Will Flagg, Dončić or both see the court in the game scheduled for Oct. 15 at T-Mobile Arena? Who knows?
But the Lakers and Mavericks seem content to cash in on the hype in a matchup that should garner considerably more attention than your average NBA preseason contest.
The Lakers confirmed the existence of the game Monday. And to be clear, this is a game that both teams chose to schedule, as is custom with the NBA preseason. As The Athletic explained in a feature on the NBA preseason last fall:
“Teams arrange their own schedules, pick their own opponents and have their own reasons for doing so. … There are few rules for the preseason. They don’t even play games if they don’t want to. The NBA doesn’t mandate a minimum number of games, just that teams can’t play more than six each year. The rest is up to the teams themselves.”
When will the Lakers and Mavericks play in a game that actually counts? That’s yet to be determined. The NBA schedule generally isn’t set until August. Until then, both teams will maintain their collective buzz amid the bright lights of the Las Vegas Strip.
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