Rui Hachimura's hilarious admission about NBA Cup
Today at 09:32 PM
LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Lakers take their first step towards defending their NBA Cup title when they hit the road against the San Antonio Spurs on Friday. Although the Lakers won the inaugural NBA Cup, they proceeded to lose ten of their next 13 games. Following the Lakers' home win against the Memphis Grizzlies on Tuesday, Rui Hachimura was very honest when asked about what the team's approach is to the cup this season.
"We just want the money. I think that's the one thing we kind of, last year, we were very motivated," Hachimura said. "We have the big prize, we're playing in Vegas. Vegas is like our homecourt basically. There's a lot of our Lakers fans. We always go there for preseason games and we always have a good time there."
The prize money and the location are certainly a big motivating factor in winning the NBA Cup. Each player on the cup championship team wins a little over $500,000. For the two-way contract guys, that essentially doubles their salary.
But there are on-court positives for being able to string together a consistent run to the cup title game. Hachimura spoke about how having the tournament about halfway to the All-Star break brings added inspiration amid an 82-game grind.
"The season is 82 games. All the way to All-Star is so long and then we kind of get sometimes bored. I think this tournament thing kind of motivates us to kind of get on a different level," Hachimura said. "Especially for us, to make it to the playoff and go to the championship. . .it's good that we kind of build our chemistry early on."
Hachimura is not the only person on the team who is eyeing the prize money for the winning team. The winning head coach is also awarded $500,000. That hasn't gone unnoticed by Lakers head coach JJ Redick.
"I found out that the coaches slo get a bonus," Redick joked following the Lakers' win against the Grizzlies. "I expect our guys to be highly competitive. I said this a number of times last year, you don't need to give a reason for competitive people to compete. They wake up in the morning, they want to compete."
Rui Hachimura's role with Lakers
Coming into the 2024-25 season, Hachimura was a player who was identified as someone who needed to have a big season for the Lakers to achieve success.
He was initially acquired by the Lakers during a midseason trade with the Washington Wizards during 2022-23. It was the first of a couple of trade deadline moves the team would make that year that helped power a run to the Western Conference Finals.
He's done well so far this season playing off LeBron James and Anthony Davis. He's been aggressive in terms of his activity in the paint and around the basket, and he's been knocking down his open three-point shots. His two threes early in the first quarter helped the Lakers get off to a good start against Memphis.
"We needed a good start. Sometimes we kind have a slow start. . .Of course I made those two threes but also defensively, we are moving, we are guarding," Hachimura said. "We executed and I think that was a good first quarter."
The Lakers hit the road for a brief, two-game trip against the Spurs and New Orleans Pelicans.
The post Rui Hachimura's hilarious admission about NBA Cup appeared first on ClutchPoints.
