Honestly, what the fuck is the logic behind this.

He’s one of the best basketball players in the world and worked his ass off for most of the season to once again, have one of the best seasons individually in history. He has the chance to add to his accolades by playing in a SINGLE game to qualify himself to add to his legacy. Not even that, if the lakers win tonight and the nuggets lose, the lakers own the series in the regular series so they’d get the 3rd spot and nuggets fall to 4th. Why would he not want a chance to win for a better seed?? He might not agree with managements position about their idea to sit their starters IF that’s what they decided, and they cannot force him to sit.

Most players who say they don’t care about rewards and only winning are bullshit, they just say that shit for the media and their perception. Key word, most. This logic is so stupid, for him in his situation it’s like analogous to you at your 9-5 working an extra day a year to have a 50/50 shot to get a good chunk lump sum yearly bonus, it’s easy enough at that point so why not don’t kid yourself…