It couldn’t have been scripted better. The first ever NBA Cup final in Las Vegas on Saturday night: budding star Tyrese Haliburton and his Cinderella story of an Indiana Pacers team against face-of-the-league, battling-father-time-with-a-machete LeBron James and his physically imposing Los Angeles Lakers. The new and exciting v the iconic and tenured. Frenetic and kinetic v gritty and tough. A perfect balance, something for everyone. The teams in the final stage of the NBA’s maiden in-season tournament represented the latest “what went right” in an increasingly long list of favorable breaks for Adam Silver and Co in their bid to make the slog of the regular season between October and Christmas a little more interesting.
As the extended NBA universe touched down in Vegas over weekend, it found itself in a culture clash, as a rodeo convention hit the city at the same time as the league landed on The Strip. Middle-aged guys in cowboy hats, arm and arm with bleach blondes in bedazzled denim, dominated much of Vegas, and almost every bar and casino was blaring country music to accommodate them. But as evidenced by the number of Kobe Bryant jerseys in their midst, and the noise levels at the arena for the Cup final, there were plenty of basketball fans (especially of the Lakers persuasion) as well: the city is, after all, only a four-hour drive from LA. And there was an air of excitement surrounding the arena – and the event’s extended footprint at neighboring Park MGM – that can only be attributed to the thrill of attending something brand new.
