Tonight at 5:30 PM PT the Los Angeles Lakers and Indiana Pacers square off in Las Vegas for the In-Season Tournament championship. Despite Kings fans being weary at the nonstop narratives around reliving the Tyrese Haliburton trade, we at The Kings Herald wanted to declare our official rooting position:
Beat LA, Hali.
I’m so tired of all the constant rehashing of talking points every time Haliburton has a great game, but I still love watching Tyrese play basketball. He’s awesome, and it’s not his fault that Twitter casuals can’t understand nuance. I’d rather endure yet another evening of people anointing Hali as a transcendent star while ignoring Fox’s latest feats, or people failing to notice the fact that the Kings and Pacers have identical records this season, because all of that is still preferable to the Lakers winning anything, even a somewhat meaningless tournament.
The game will air on ABC, and will also mercifully mark the final time we have to see those hideous courts this season.
Glad to see Hali finally starting to light his own beam.
A part of me can’t help but feel a little bitter, like a scorned lover. Dude is on his way to being a top 5 player and it just feels like he should be a King. Even worse, I love his game, just so fun to watch. I wish there was a world where he was still in Sac.
Giraffe posited a trade on X:
Davion, KH and a first for Caruso and Coby White.
I like the idea of obtaining Caruso and a solid backup PG. Giving up another first kind of hurts though as it inhibits making a big move. Just not sure how much Caruso would move the needle. The lack of size and athleticism in the interior is still a big issue. Finding the ideal 4 next to Domas is difficult, that much more so if we don’t have future picks to trade to fill that hole at some point.
no
have not even lost pick for KH yet.
Caruso might help on D but he is a back up. and do not want to give up another first in this deal.
Agreed. I think if we make a trade we need to think bigger.
I agree’. IMO a stretch 4 is more important than a bachup point guard. I really like Tari Eason who has been on the bench for the Rockets but now I read today that Houston is looking at Eason in a different light. He might be harder to get or cost us more. Oh well.
The IndiHali Pacers are one of my favorite teams. For the time being, I will root against Hali twice a year, with the hope that I can eventually root against him an additional seven times at the end of the year.
The whole “who won the trade” bs is tiresome and worn. Hell, if this version of the Kings were to ever win a championship, I’d give Hali a ring, as we would never have an all-NBA center right now without Tyrese blowing the doors off #12 pick value.
Go get ’em, Tyrese!
I’m with you. But I only want to see him five times at the end of the year! I’d say four but that doesn’t feel gentlemanly.
Yeah, the instant he got traded to Indiana, the Pacers became my second-favorite team to watch.
Like the Kings, they are so fun to watch.
His insane passes keep popping up everywhere on social media.
I think Hali is a better player right now than anyone on the Lakers.
The only rooting I’ll doing is for the players to not get hurt for a ridiculous cash grab.
I’ve enjoyed the tourney, and I think that the players have, too. The tourney adds no games to the schedule, and players are as likely to get hurt in game 13, 27, 45, 62 of the regular season as any of this tourney games.
I didn’t think the MegaBowl itself was part of the regular season schedule, and after quick review I can confirm it is not. I was about to concede but I’m going to have to politely disagree sir.
If the Pacers lose, there is no God.
Austin Reaves is in Hillbilly Kobe godmode.
Lakers-Pacers first half: somehow, the Pacers are within five.
Haliburton had a horrible first half with only six assists.
Pacers 29% from three.
Obi “thank-you-Tyrese-for-waking-me-from-the-coma-that-was-my-NBA-career” Toppin is a bright spot for the Pacers with 10 points in the first half.
I see the Pacers winning this one by 73.
Sorry for the typo. I meant 743.
AD decided to show up. Dominated the smaller pacers. Glad someone else hates these courts. Regular courts with the cup logo would have been plenty.
Of course AD showed up – Sabonis wasn’t playing. 🐂🐂🐂
God Is Dead, Lakers Win IST
They say that evil comes in threes, so in addition to the celebrity death of Norman Lear and the reality-show version of Squid Game, we can add a Lakers win in the In-Season Tournament, thereby crushing all future interest in the event throughout the world except for Southern California, which doesn’t really exist anyway.
When I asked ChatGPT, knower of all things worth knowing, about the results of the Lakers-Pacers game, it said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t have any real-time information,” at which point I checked my phone and realized that I was more gifted than any machine, even though I had to use a machine in order to feel that way.
What follows is a collection of nothing. Buddy Hield had zero blocks. Austin Reaves had zero steals. Tyrese with offensive boards, Obi Toppin with assists, Cam Reddish with steals, nil, zilch, zippo. So now you have a clear picture of how the game went.
Christmas has been canceled. Inform your distant families that there will be no trip this year. Also inform them in your most ominous voice that all future family events have “come into question.” Provide no further detail. Just hang up the phone.
Tell your children in your gravest voice that this, finally, is the year when they have been so bad, they have broken so many barriers, customs, and laws that voices on high have ruled in their infinite wisdom that they will get neither presents nor the death penalty, which would have been very gentle choking by their parents. Psychologists inform me that the crying will stop eventually, but the bedwetting may increase by a factor of ten.
So, God is dead. Sorry to bury the lede like that, but there’s nothing left. Wander in the trees looking for lost childhood toys, go to Vegas and put it all on red, call the girl in fourth grade that you made cry even though she was your first love, order circus peanuts online. Nothing matters.
The Lakers have taken something that could have been interesting and fun, eaten it, and pooped it out like your neighbor’s albino dog. Thanks, Reggie.
Totally off subject. I live in PHX and found this article advocating exploration of a trade for Davion Mitchell on Valleyofthesun.com. Interesting is the claim that Davion averages 15 points per game (i believe he meant minutes). Maybe even more interesting was this tidbit:
That is either not true or news to me. Two major blunders. Clearly the writers and editors at valleyofthesun are not as detail or fact check oriented as our TKH team.
That article was written with AI, not a doubt in my mind.
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