I get why the Lakers fans are butthurt over it.
I don't. The play in tournament seems to be doing exactly what it was designed to do...maintain fan interest deeper into a season. There a total of 4 teams who were able to use the 9-10 play in spots. But there were several other teams who were in the running fairly late. That keeps the fans of those teams interested, plus it keeps fans of teams who may be looking at those games interested because their team may be playing one of them.
And all of that means more money for the league and teams. With a couple of tweaks, I could see if being a way to cut down on regular season games without really losing any revenue.
If the Lakers didn't want to be in it, they should have won a couple more games.