LAS VEGAS — The Los Angeles Lakers outclassed everyone they faced in the NBA's inaugural In-Season Tournament on their way to the first Cup championship. They went undefeated, 6-0, including 3-0 in knockout play, and only trailed for roughly eight minutes in the entire knockout stage. They took home the cup and the $500,000 per player behind dominant play from LeBron James and Anthony Davis, and intimidating defense.
This isn't the playoffs. The NBA Playoffs are 133 days away. But the Lakers passed the test in front of them, with such higher stakes, in such emphatic fashion, that the conclusion is clear.
This team can win the title.
The Lakers made the conference finals last year, but it was on the back of an unlikely run in the messy part of the season, an upset over a disintegrating and injured Grizzlies team and facing a Warriors team off a seven-game series that clearly is not what they once were. They were swept by the eventual champion Nuggets, but every game was close.
Still, there were questions about whether this team was legit or not. Even three weeks ago, it looked like the Lakers might not be that good.
However, when the lights got brighter, other teams like the Pelicans and Bucks fell apart, and the Lakers thrived. In their 123-109 win over the Pacers, they held the No. 1 offense in the NBA to a 102.8 offensive rating, lower than any game they've had this season. Their defense wasn't just elite but intimidating and smothering. Regular season teams wilted in the face of the Lakers' athleticism and physicality.
James won Tournament MVP, and while Davis was the more dominant player in the Final against an overmatched Pacers team that also dealt with foul trouble for Myles Turner, it was James who set the tone constantly.
James saw this not only as an opportunity to win something no one else had won before but to perform at a high level in a city he has now openly declared he wants to own an expansion franchise. (The $500,000 may not seem like it matters to a literal billionaire, but James is also notoriously money-conscious. He enjoyed that part, too.)
James wasn't ready to say that the IST performance proves anything about their title contention.
"I think that's too far down the road," James said after the game. "We have to remember that it's still December. But right now, where we are in December, I like it. There's just too many steps we have to take as a team before the playoffs."
James has seen too many teams with good starts go sideways in his 21-year career. He knows that avoiding (and managing) injuries and maintaining high-level habits is a season-long process.
But the Lakers are not built to dominate night-in and night-out. They won't finish with a record like the Celtics and may not finish with a top-four seed in a tough Western Conference.
Instead, the Lakers are built to be ready for the environment when games are most competitive, and the stakes are highest. Their formula is to manage the season the best they can, hopefully make it through healthy and then hit the level they found in the IST once April comes around.
"This is a great piece of positive stimuli for us," coach Darvin Ham said after the game. "Being able to have their competitive spirit revealed, and for their teammates to see it, it was a shot in the arm for us. We needed this."
The Lakers found their formula. High-level competitiveness led by James, elite defense, and physicality. It was enough for the Lakers to win the In-Season Tournament in dominant fashion.
And it reveals a formula they can use to pursue the ultimate goal, the next championship in the franchise's prolific history.
