When the Lakers decided they would remake nearly the entirety of their roster in a single offseason, there were always going to be pressure points placed on the months leading into the regular season. The new group needed to find ways to grow the chemistry required to be a real team that can manage the ups and downs of an 82-game regular season and then the playoffs.
So, whether you agreed with each choice they made to let a player walk or which player to acquire, what came after those decisions,
in the form of time spent on forging the group, would impact the trajectory.
The Lakers, to their credit, seemed to understand this. Both from a coaching and management perspective and from the players themselves.
First was the minicamp organized in Las Vegas around Summer League, a time when the team got nearly full representation not only behind the scenes at workouts, but also at the games. Reports coming out of Vegas were universally positive and it was clear there was intentionality about the reps the group was putting in together in hopes of building up their collective chemistry.
Second, and even more important, was the much publicized trip the team took to Slovenia. This not only allowed the players to learn a ton about each other on and off the court by giving them so much time together to bond in a variety of different environments, but it was huge in reorienting the team’s leadership structure principally around Luka for the first time in the nearly 18 months since they traded for him.
When training camp opened, then, the hope was the team would build on that momentum and springboard them into the regular season in a way that would best allow them to capitalize on what can be viewed as a somewhat soft schedule to open the year.
Instead, though, what transpired is what can be fairly described as a frustratingly disjointed camp where conservative injury management negatively impacted player availability, whether in practices, games, or both.
After starting out fairly strong over the course of the two-plus weeks of camp and the team’s five preseason games, several established and potential rotation players were increasingly held back from practices and games, limiting the amount of time this brand new roster could build together through on-court reps.
Of the team’s (likely) 15 players to make the final roster, only four — Quentin Grimes, Jake LaRavia, Sandro Mamukelashvili, and Kevon Looney — appeared in every game, while the rest of the team was held out of multiple contests:
- Collin Sexton — Missed all five games due to a lower leg issue
- Walker Kessler — Played in just two games due to a finger issue, including one where he was held out of the second half.
- Luka Dončić — Played in three of the five games, but was held out of the second half of one of them
- Austin Reaves — Played in three of the five games
- Ziaire Williams — Played in just two of the five games due to a foot issue
- Adou Thiero — Played in three of the five games, but was held out of the final two games for reasons not entirely clear
- Cameron Carr — Played in just two of the five games, and none of the final three, for reasons that are not entirely clear
I understand this is preseason and not every player is going to appear in every game — nor am I asking them to. I think finding strategic rest for Luka and Reaves, in particular, should be built into the plan for both players as the ask on them will be so heavy during the regular season.
That said, the overlapping nature of players missing games — as well the contact/live portions of practice in Sexton’s case — greatly diminishes the team’s most important players of the biggest and most important resource they have: time together.
Training camp is the longest uninterrupted stretch of the season. It’s where a team has a chance to practice together and then to take the reps from those sessions into a game environment to test them on actual opponents.
And rather than utilize that resource and maximize it to the highest possible level, the Lakers essentially punted on that. I understand that at least some of this is injury-related, and you absolutely do not want to trade regular season availability for preseason practice and game reps. However, all I’ve had to do is listen to head coach JJ Redick comment about his team’s injuries to seriously question whether anyone was in actually any real jeopardy at all of that sort of trade-off.
For example, in his media availability after a practice when answering a question about the team’s installation of certain sets leading up to the team’s second preseason game against the Kings, Redick said this to say (emphasis mine):
“Frankly, we had those early practices and then we were installing and then…we haven’t gotten to that yet. We will prior to (opening night). Hopefully as some of these bumps and bruises kinda heal for some of these guys we can be, a little bit more like, our group. It’s a lot of managing very small bumps and bruises right now.”
And then after that Kings game — a game where Sexton, Kessler, Williams, and Carr all sat out with various ailments — Redick had more to say about not having his full team available presently and his hopes to get guys back sooner than later:
“Would love to get some news on some people in the next few days to be able to see what we look like at full strength at least in one of these games. And just build that rhythm with each other. I’m very confident we’ll have enough practice time over the next 13 days, 12 days, whatever it is…”
Well, JJ, you would not get that chance to see your team at full strength. Because, in the team’s last two games, Luka received planned rest after the team did not play for four days and then only played a half in the team’s preseason finale. Thiero and Carr missed both games and Williams ultimately returned for just the finale and played on a minutes restriction that allowed him to only play in the first half.
All, again, while Sexton never suited up at all.
And speaking of Williams, following that finale against Denver, Redick praised Williams for his overall play, his shot-making, instincts as a cutter, and his intent to pressure the ball, but closed his comments on the guy who will likely start at forward next to Dončić by adding, “hopefully we get three really good days with him and his foot soreness or whatever and he can play more than 10 minutes on (opening night).”
Maybe I’m hearing what I want or projecting my own feelings onto Redick, but the nature of all these comments implies, to me, a certain level of frustration of how the injury management of his players impacted their availability, not only in games but in practices, and the implications of that for his team going into the regular season.
I’ve listened to Redick talk enough in his two-plus seasons to have an okay feel for this sort of thing and, even if I didn’t, I think assuming some amount of frustration is totally reasonable when you consider Kessler said multiple times that he was “fine” while sitting out games and the live portions of practice and that “small bumps and bruises” were seemingly costing his players real on-court time.
The degree to which this will ultimately matter remains to be seen.
Maybe I’m just making a mountain out of a molehill and the team will be just fine. After all, last preseason the Lakers had several players miss multiple games and practices only for them to come out of the gate hot and win 15 of their first 20 games. Those teams seemed no worse for the wear and the level of freshness and togetherness they played with stood out as a key reason for their success.
That said, that team also had way more players in their rotation who had played together previously, with only three players — DeAndre Ayton, Marcus Smart, and LaRavia — in their rotation on opening night new to the roster. This season, if everyone is actually healthy, only four of the 11 players who are realistically fighting for opening night minutes were even on last year’s roster.
That is a huge shift and is a massive downgrade in familiarity and natural chemistry.
Now, some of that can be compensated for through clear roles, a natural hierarchy of shot creation, and enough basketball IQ and general know-how for these guys to make simple, yet meaningful connections. And with players as good as Luka and Austin leading the way and a coach like JJ who has proven very capable of creating game plans and implementing schematic approaches that play to the strengths of his players, there’s an argument this team is well set up to overcome the lack of actual on-court minutes this roster got during the preseason.
That said, if you gave everyone the option for things to go the way they actually did vs. a world where everyone was healthy and there weren’t any real limits on their time together, we all know what choice they’d make. Which is just one additional variable I wish this team didn’t have to deal with as the regular season approaches.
Particularly when they intentionally built an entirely new team and understood coming in how much this part of their team-building could matter.
You can follow Darius on BlueSky at @forumbluegold and find more of his Lakers coverage on the Laker Film Room Podcast.
