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There was little noise this year about the colorful NBA Cup courts, a staple of the league’s in-season tournament since it launched in 2023.
Until Tuesday night, when Lakers star Luka Dončić called for a change.
“Adjust the courts, please. It’s just slippery. It’s dangerous,” Dončić said after the Lakers’ win over the Clippers at Crypto.com Arena. “I slipped a lot of times. You could see a lot of players slipped.”
It’s not the first time Dončić has complained about the NBA Cup floor. During the tournament’s inaugural season, Dončić, then with the Mavericks, also said the courts were slick.
“It was really slippery and then in some places, the ball didn’t really bounce,” Dončić said two seasons ago. “If we’re going to have these courts, we got to make sure it’s a stable court. It was a little slippery, especially the painted area.”
NBA stars like Jaylen Brown and Tyrese Haliburton also complained about the slippery courts in 2023.
“The court was just slippery all game,” Brown said. “As players, we’re all here for the in-season tournament because it’s going to generate revenue, excitement, competition, etc. We’ve got to make sure the floor is safe to play on. We can’t put our players out there and risk their health.”
After the inaugural tournament, Joe Dumars, then the NBA’s executive vice president who now runs the Pelicans, said additional lead time would lead to improvements. The NBA officially announced the in-season tournament in July 2023, four months before the first game was played.
The additional time in Year 2 allowed the league to move from three manufacturers to just one: Robbins, already an existing approved floor vendor. Kevin Price, a portable sales manager at Robbins, told Front Office Sports that they remain the league’s lone supplier for NBA Cup courts this year.
He said that “nothing changed” with the courts of all 30 teams between last year and this year other than the graphics.
The slick courts appeared to have been addressed last season as complaints in 2024 were limited to aesthetics rather than function.
Price said he hasn’t spoken to the NBA but thinks conversion and condensation from the NHL game the previous night may have factored into the slick courts at Crypto.com Arena.
“They probably were playing hockey on it the night before on the ice and then they put the court down on top of it. So it probably had to do with condensation,” Price said.
The NHL’s Kings, who share Crypto.com Arena with the Lakers, played the previous night, though it’s not rare for NHL and NBA teams to share the same arena and play games on consecutive nights. Other examples are in Boston (Celtics and Bruins), D.C. (Wizards and Capitals), and New York (Rangers and Knicks).
The NBA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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