LOS ANGELES - In one of the biggest sales in sports history, the NBA Board of Governors officially approved the sale of the Los Angeles Lakers to Mark Walter, it was announced Thursday. Walter, CEO of Guggeneheim Partners, is also the co-owner and chairman of the Dodgers, who are currently fighting for back-to-back World Series championships.

The six group winners plus a wild card from each conference — determined by head-to-head record and point differential — go into an eight-team knockout round bracket (East vs. East, West vs. West, similar to the NBA playoffs where the conferences are separate until the Finals). The knockout round games are single-elimination.

Welcome to the Thursday NBA DFS slate. I am once again back to cover the NBA this year from a DFS perspective, providing strategy and player advice for every Thursday and Monday slate. It was a great season last year, where I missed out on some big wins but ended up profitable. Let’s run it back again this year, shall we?

Each franchise has a new design created by Victor Solomon, fresh for the 2025 tournament. Solomon also created last year’s courts for the tournament and collaborated with Tiffany & Co. on designing the NBA Cup trophy. Check out all 30 courts. ALL 30 TEAM COURTS FOR EMIRATES NBA CUP 2025 pic.twitter.com/aZzsIdUedL

The NBA Board of Governors approved Mark Walter's purchase of a majority stake in the Lakers at a valuation of $10 billion, the highest ever for a pro sports team.

Even though the New York Knicks were widely regarded as one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference coming into the season, Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green isn't ready to put them in that tier of contender.

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The NBA Tip-Off 2025 had nearly 37 million viewers in the United States tuning in across NBC/Peacock, ESPN and Amazon Prime. This marks a staggering 100% increase year-to-year and the most viewers for an opening week in 15 years.

Brunson is averaging 31.8 points, 5.0 assists and 4.0 rebounds to start the season, while Towns has relatively struggled with 17.0 points and 13.5 rebounds. Core starters like Mikal Bridges (18.0 PPG) and OG Anunoby (14.3 PPG) haven't had decent starts to the season either, so the team's 2-2 record could be written off as circumstantial.

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