Michael Malone shrugs off Lakers' comments on him: 'If we're on their minds, then I guess that's on them'
The Los Angeles Lakers ended last season with some pokes from Denver Nuggets coach Michael Malone. It appears that's how they'll be starting this season as well.
We're not quite at a feud level of bad blood between Los Angeles and Denver, but the two sides are at least making things interesting before their NBA season-opener scheduled for Oct. 24.
As you might remember, Malone bristled a little in last year's Western Conference finals over the disproportionate attention the Lakers received amid a Denver sweep. After the season, he also made light of LeBron James sucking the air out of coverage of their trip to the NBA Finals when he hinted at retiring out of nowhere after the series. And there was that time Malone was introduced as "the Lakers' daddy" by a Nuggets broadcaster at their championship parade.
Clearly, sweeping the Lakers meant a lot to Malone and the Nuggets. The Lakers took notice, with James and head coach Darvin Ham responding in the following months. That attention continued at their media day on Monday, via ESPN:
Anthony Davis, speaking to Spectrum SportsNet during media day Monday, called all the trash talk "motivational." He added: "There was just so much of that going on it was like, 'All right, we get it, y'all won.' But me and Bron had some conversations like, 'We can't wait [to play them again.]'"
Lakers guard Austin Reaves also took umbrage with the Denver discourse.
"I think everybody knows it was pointed at us," Reaves said after the first practice of training camp Tuesday. "They can do it indirectly if they want, but I think it was very obvious to the public eye. That's why everybody was talking about it."
Weirdly, the most angry person in all this was former Seattle Seahawks turned Fox Sports talking head Richard Sherman, a Laker fan, who was so incensed by the Nuggets' digs he declared the Malone and the Nuggets' championship would be forgotten by the basketball world.
That's a lot of heat coming from the NBA's most-covered franchise. Malone was asked about the responses Wednesday and, for the most part, shrugged them off:
"Oh, they're talking about us? That was what, four months ago?I can't speak for anybody in L.A. I can speak for the 18 players on our team, but if they're still worried about us, that's on them.
"This is a new season, a new challenge, and it was a hell of a series against them. I know it was a 4-0 sweep, but all those games seemed like they went down to the wire. As I said after that Game 4, we have tremendous respect for that team. I have tremendous respect for Darvin Ham as a coach and the job that he did. But yeah, I don't listen to any of that stuff. I don't know what they're saying, and if we're on their minds, then I guess that's on them."
Malone proceeded to declare the Nuggets did not have a rivalry with the Lakers (yet):
"That's not a rivalry. I mean, you can't play a team in the Western Conference finals twice in the last couple of years and think it's a rivalry. When I think of rivalries, I think of Boston-L.A. I think of the Knicks and the Miami Heat back in the day. I don't welcome it or not welcome it. I'm on 2023-24. I'm not living four months ago."
Malone is probably right in that Lakers-Nuggets isn't really a rivalry. It's certainly a matchup that deserves a little more attention than your average pair of Western Conference contenders, but the Nuggets aren't even the team that got the most hostile with the Lakers last postseason.
That said, the Lakers clearly had the Nuggets' attention last season and the opposite is now true this season. As the Lakers enter the season looking a little better, with a core that took them to the conference finals plus free-agent acquisition Gabe Vincent, and the Nuggets enter looking a little worse, with the loss of key reserves Bruce Brown and Jeff Green, you will definitely be hearing about all this come Oct. 24.
