NBA<\/a> Cup games \u2013 but Don\u00e7i\u0107 didn\u2019t feel safe.<\/p>\n\u201cAdjust the courts, please,\u201d Don\u00e7i\u0107 said after praising the format of the tournament, now in its third year. \u201cIt\u2019s just slippery. It\u2019s dangerous … I slipped a lot of times. You could see a lot of players slipped. That\u2019s dangerous, man.\u201d<\/p>\n
The game was the Lakers\u2019 first Cup game at home this season after starting group play with two road games. Don\u00e7i\u0107 said he couldn\u2019t remember whether the courts in New Orleans and Memphis were more slippery than normal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they\u2019re just new courts, so it\u2019s kind of tough,\u201d Don\u00e7i\u0107 said. \u201cIt needs … playing some games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Complaints about the special courts are not new. Boston star Jaylen Brown said he injured his groin while playing on the Toronto Raptors\u2019 NBA Cup court in 2023, and other players have weighed in on the dangers of playing on unworn hardwood.<\/p>\n
LeBron James said he saw \u201ca couple of guys\u201d struggling on the court Tuesday, but didn\u2019t personally find it dangerous.<\/p>\n
The Lakers clinched their group and earned a spot in the NBA Cup quarter-finals with their victory. That\u2019s exciting to Don\u00e7i\u0107, who understands the concept of Cup competitions in a way his North American teammates often do not.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I never got past the group stage, so it\u2019s something new for me,\u201d Don\u00e7i\u0107 said. \u201cI played it in Spain, something like this, so I like it.\u201d<\/p>\n
When told he had earned at least $53,000 with the Lakers\u2019 group win, Don\u00e7i\u0107, who has $198m in career earnings, grinned.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, I\u2019ll accept money,\u201d Don\u00e7i\u0107 laughed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luka Don\u00e7i\u0107 was unhappy with the special NBA Cup court at the Los Angeles Lakers\u2019 downtown arena, calling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-308257","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}