- Lakers coach Darvin Ham said he needs to “tighten up” his rotation after Sunday’s loss in Sacramento, according to Dave McMenamin of ESPN. Ham has been trying to acclimate Gabe Vincent, who missed much of the preseason with tightness in his lower back, while also dealing with the loss of Jarred Vanderbilt, who is sidelined with bursitis in his left heel. “My rotation, we got to really dig into that,” Ham said. “Really take a close look and so guys are in rhythm. We have a great collection of players. And I played in this league. When you know when you’re going in and who you’re playing with, that matters. So buckling down on our rotation, I’ll start there.”
Lakers guard D’Angelo Russell sees himself in teammate Cam Reddish, explaining to reporters on Saturday that he felt like he was “judged” early in his career because he didn’t really know “how to be a professional.” Reddish, who is on his fourth team in five seasons, faced similar questions during his early years in the league, so Russell has tried to take him under his wing in Los Angeles, as Broderick Turner of The Los Angeles Times details.
“Forget the past and just change your approach and try to work on your professionalism and how you carry yourself,” Russell said in explaining what he has told Reddish. “Understand the perception of you and what they say, what it looks like. Just understanding that as a young player. As a young player, it takes you to bump your head a few times to realize your perception.”
Reddish wasn’t necessarily projected to be a regular part of the Lakers’ rotation entering the season, but an injury to Jarred Vanderbilt has helped open up a spot for him. The former lottery pick has logged 29 minutes in his first two games as a Laker, though he says he’s not taking that playing time for granted.
“Like, your role could change every day in the NBA,” Reddish said. “Injuries, a lot of things that can go into it. I just try to stay ready in all aspects, prepare for anything, prepare for the worst. Whatever my role is that night, that’s what it is and I do it to the best of my ability.”
Here’s more on the NBA’s two Los Angeles teams:
- The Lakers‘ G League affiliate – the South Bay Lakers – traded for the rights to forward Jack White, the No. 1 pick in Saturday’s NBAGL draft. According to the team (Twitter link), the cost to acquire White was the rights to Teafale Lenard Jr. (Saturday’s No. 2 overall pick) and first- and second-round picks in the 2024 G League draft. White played for Denver last season and was in camp with Oklahoma City this fall.
- As Law Murray of The Athletic observes, the Clippers went to a nine-man rotation in their second game of the season on Friday after using 10 players in Wednesday’s opener. The odd man out was offseason acquisition Kenyon Martin Jr., who played 14 minutes on Wednesday but was a DNP-CD on Friday. That doesn’t necessarily mean Martin won’t see regular playing time going forward, but there will be even fewer minutes to go around once Terance Mann (ankle) returns.
- Clippers forward Marcus Morris didn’t accompany the team on its trip to Utah on Friday, according to Murray. Morris has been a healthy scratch in each of L.A.’s first two games, and a source tells The Athletic that his status on the road will be determined “one trip at a time.”
The Lakers will be without forward Jarred Vanderbilt for at least two more weeks, the team announced today (Twitter link via Broderick Turner of The Los Angeles Times).
According to the Lakers, Vanderbilt was reexamined by team doctors on Thursday and is still dealing with left heel bursitis. While he’s improving, Vanderbilt will be reevaluated by the medical staff in two weeks, at which time the club will provide another update.
Vanderbilt, 24, was one of two players sent from Utah to Los Angeles at the 2023 trade deadline, along with Malik Beasley (D’Angelo Russell arrived from Minnesota in the same three-team deal). Vanderbilt started 24 of 26 regular season games for the Lakers down the stretch, averaging 7.2 points and 6.7 rebounds in 24.0 minutes per night while shooting 52.9% from the field and 78.4% from the free throw line.
Although he was one of the few Lakers who wasn’t a free agent this offseason, Vanderbilt still cashed in, agreeing to a four-year, $48MM veteran extension that will keep him under team control through at least the 2026/27 season. He’ll hold a player option for ’27/28.
Vanderbilt was considered a strong candidate to start in the Lakers’ frontcourt alongside LeBron James and Anthony Davis to open the season. His injury opened the door for Taurean Prince to claim that starting spot.
Veteran guard Malcolm Brogdon was preparing in June to join the Clippers before three-team trade talks also involving the Celtics and Wizards fell apart. Now a member of the Trail Blazers, Brogdon tells Tomer Azarly of ClutchPoints that he preparing for a move to Los Angeles again this fall when Portland was shopping Jrue Holiday after acquiring Holiday from Milwaukee.
“Once Jrue was traded from Milwaukee, I knew Boston had a lot of interest in him and I figured Boston would have a good run at getting him because I was a guy that they were open to trading,” Brogdon said. “… I was preparing myself for both [the Blazers and Clippers] because I thought I might be in Portland and I thought I might be flipped straight to L.A. So I didn’t know, but I was preparing myself.”
The Trail Blazers ended up hanging onto Brogdon, stressing that his veteran leadership will be welcomed in a young locker room, and as part of a young backcourt. However, there’s no guarantee that he’ll finish the season in Portland. For his part, the guard tells Azarly that he’ll remain prepared for any scenario.
“For me, it’s all about me staying sharp,” Brogdon said. “It’s less about the scenario or the situation of the teams.”
Here’s more on the NBA’s two Los Angeles teams:
- While the Clippers have been linked for months to James Harden, do they already have the right play-making guard on their roster in Russell Westbrook? Janis Carr of The Orange County Register (subscriber link) and Dylan Hernandez of The Los Angeles Times explore that topic, with Hernandez noting that head coach Tyronn Lue said Westbrook has “bought in 100%” to what the team needs from him.
- Christian Wood‘s limitations as a defender were considered one key reason why he was unable to land more than a minimum-salary deal as a free agent this offseason, but the Lakers big man impressed the team in his second game on Thursday with the defense he played against Kevin Durant and the Suns, writes Broderick Turner of The Los Angeles Times. “I thought he did about as good as anyone can do,” Ham said of Wood, who grabbed 10 rebounds and was a plus-23 in 21 minutes. “He made a commitment to me when we signed him that that is a part of his game that he wants to get better at. And with his length, his agility, he’s able to contest at a high rate.”
- The Lakers showed in their second game of the season that they’re viewing their 28-to-30-minute plan for LeBron James as more of a loose guideline than a hard cap, as ESPN’s Dave McMenamin and Jovan Buha of The Athletic detail. James played the entire fourth quarter and 35 minutes in total on Thursday to help the club secure a win over Phoenix. “I understand that we definitely have a system put in place, but tonight called for me to go outside the box,” he said after the victory.
Suns guards Devin Booker (left foot soreness) and Bradley Beal (lower back tightness) have been downgraded to out for Thursday’s matchup vs. the Lakers in Los Angeles, per Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic. Both players were listed as doubtful on Wednesday evening.
After initially being listed as questionable on Tuesday, Booker suited up and led Phoenix to a victory in the team’s season opener at Golden State, notching 32 points (on 13-of-21 shooting), eight assists and six rebounds. Beal, who was also questionable against the Warriors, ultimately missed the contest.
Grayson Allen started in Beal’s place on Tuesday, Rankin notes. Eric Gordon may start at the other guard spot — he started in place of Booker in the Suns’ preseason finale against the Lakers.
Beal suffered a “little tweak” in his back during practice last week, while Booker sustained a contact injury that also occurred in practice, as Gerald Bourguet of PHNX Sports relays (all Twitter links). Obviously it’s disappointing that two of their three stars will be out, but it’s better to be safe early in the season rather than potentially exacerbating the injuries, Bourguet adds.
As he enters his age-33 season, Clippers forward Paul George is thinking about the legacy he’ll leave behind when his NBA career is over, writes Andrew Greif of The Los Angeles Times. And George isn’t happy that he has no championship hardware to show for his four years in Los Angeles (or his nine NBA seasons before that), as injuries have repeatedly sidelined him and fellow star Kawhi Leonard.
“My legacy here is just haven’t been able to finish,” George said. “I think in a lot of ways, injury-prone, inability to finish. So can’t even say that — like, I never go into a summer like, ‘Hey, what do I need to work on to get better, what do I need to’ … I got to just try to find a way to stay healthy.”
The Clippers appear to approaching the 2023/24 season with a heightened sense of urgency. Head coach Tyronn Lue talked prior to training camp about a need to take the regular season more seriously and not just be looking ahead to the playoffs. And with both George and Leonard healthy entering the season for the first time in three years, the rest of the team has noticed a shift in the group’s collective mindset, Greif observes.
“Night-and-day different, just in terms of intensity at training camp,” Clippers guard Norman Powell said.
Here’s more from out of the Pacific:
- Leonard, who underwent surgery on his torn ACL in July of 2021, spoke repeatedly last year about the idea that the injury requires a two-year recovery period to get back to full strength. The Clippers forward reiterated that point on Tuesday, confirming he feels as good now as he has since injuring his knee in 2021. “I feel good and I’m ready to go,” Leonard said, per Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN. “… Talking to guys [who suffered ACL injuries] and seeing when they do start feeling good or just trusting your knee, it’s just something that you feel and I mean one day just turns around for you.”
- Suns forward Kevin Durant tells Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports that it was “good to have stability” this summer after a tumultuous final year in Brooklyn. Durant also admitted that he’s starting to think about what his life will look like after he retires from the NBA, though he added that he wants to play for “as long as I can.”
- While much has been made over the years of LeBron James‘ desire to play with son Bronny James before he retires from the NBA, a new Beats by Dre commercial voiced by LeBron’s wife Savannah references the Lakers star’s desire to play with son Bryce James as well, notes ESPN’s Dave McMenamin (Twitter link). Bryce, 16, is three years younger than Bronny.
- Kings head coach Mike Brown flirted during the preseason with the idea of having Chris Duarte replace Kevin Huerter in the team’s starting five, but Huerter will be the starter at shooting guard to open the season, Brown confirmed on Tuesday (Twitter link via James Ham of The Kings Beat).
Lakers star LeBron James played just 29 minutes in the team’s season-opening loss in Denver on Tuesday night, and that relatively modest workload will be a consistent theme for the 38-year-old going forward, head coach Darvin Ham told reporters, including ESPN’s Dave McMenamin.
Ham said the plan for the start of the season is to keep James in the range of 28-to-30 minutes per game. He acknowledged that, with input from the team’s trainers and medical staffers, that number could fluctuate as the season progresses, but stressed that managing LeBron’s minutes will be a priority.
“It’s easy with him to get caught up in the emotion of the game and you tend to forget you want to play these long stretches, but in order for him to be as effective as possible, we have to be mindful of the minute output and how long his stretches are,” Ham said.
James said after the game that he’s confident he’ll still be able to make an impact in the minutes he does play and indicated that he’s on board with the team’s plan for him, adding that he wasn’t “surprised or upset” by his playing time on Tuesday.
“Listen, I mean, I always want to be on the floor. Especially when you got an opportunity to win a game or you feel like you can make an impact,” James said. “But this is the system in place and I’m going to follow it.”
LeBron averaged 37.2 minutes per game in 2021/22 and 35.5 MPG in ’22/23, but missed at least 26 games in both seasons due to injuries. It sounds like the goal this year will be to bring down his minutes per game while increasing the number of contests he’s available for.
While it’s certainly not the reason for the move, it’s worth noting that end-of-season awards like All-NBA now have a 65-game minimum requirement — if those rules had been in place in the past, James wouldn’t have been eligible to make an All-NBA team since 2019/20.
James has logged 38.1 minutes per night over the course of 1,422 career regular season games, never averaging fewer than 33.4 MPG in a season (2020/21).
As we explain in a glossary entry, Exhibit 9 contracts are generally handed out by NBA teams to players who will only be with the team during training camp and/or the preseason.
The Exhibit 9 clause protects the team in case the player suffers an injury before the season begins. In that scenario, the club wouldn’t have to pay him his full salary until he gets healthy enough to play — it would only have to pay a maximum lump sum of $15K when it waives the player.
While most Exhibit 9 signees were released in advance of the regular season, three NBA veterans who signed Exhibit 9 contracts survived the cut and made their respective teams’ regular season rosters. Here are those three players:
- Ryan Arcidiacono (Knicks)
- Harry Giles (Nets)
- Lamar Stevens (Celtics)
Note: Hornets guard Edmond Sumner was initially included in this list, but Charlotte waived him on Tuesday ahead of its season opener.
These three players will now be on one-year, minimum-salary contracts that will remain non-guaranteed until January 10. In order to secure their full-season salaries, they’ll have to stay under contract beyond January 7 (a player cut on Jan. 8 or 9 wouldn’t clear waivers prior to the league-wide salary guarantee date of Jan. 10).
As our list of non-guaranteed contracts by team shows, Arcidiacono, Giles, and Stevens are three of the 31 players on standard deals whose salaries for the 2023/24 season aren’t fully guaranteed.
Several of these players will receive partial guarantees by remaining on rosters through the start of the regular season, and a few more have November or December trigger dates that will increase their guarantees. However, none of those 31 players will lock in their full salary until Jan. 10.
Here are a few more items of interest about the NBA’s opening night rosters for ’23/24, per ESPN’s Bobby Marks (Twitter link):
- The Spurs have the NBA’s youngest roster, while the Clippers have the oldest.
- Players are earning a combined total salary of $4.8 billion for the 2023/24 season. The Celtics, Nuggets, Warriors, Clippers, Lakers, Heat, Bucks, Pelicans, Sixers, and Suns are the biggest contributors to that pool, as they’re all currently over the luxury tax line.
- As our roster counts page shows, there are 12 open spots on standard 15-man rosters around the NBA. Those openings belong to the Celtics, Bulls, Cavaliers, Pistons, Warriors (two), Lakers, Heat, Timberwolves, Pelicans, Trail Blazers, and Kings.
- The Nets and the Suns are the only two teams that haven’t filled all three of their two-way slots, as our tracker shows. They’re each carrying a pair of two-way players, meaning 88 of the 90 spots around the league are occupied.
- Jarred Vanderbilt and Jalen Hood-Schifino won’t play in the Lakers’ opener, Khobi Price of the Orange County Register tweets. Vanderbilt is dealing with left heel soreness while Hood-Schifino has a right patella contusion. Hood-Schifino will be reevaluated by team doctors on Nov. 3.
After having announced that Taurean Prince would serve as the Lakers’ fifth starter, head coach Darvin Ham told reporters that he feels power forward Rui Hachimura will give the team more on the offensive end as a reserve, per Jovan Buha of The Athletic (Twitter link).
Hachimura primarily came off the bench upon being flipped to the club in January. His offensive output was somewhat erratic during the regular season, but he put on a superlative shooting performance in the playoffs. The 6’8″ big man out of Gonzaga averaged 12.2 PPG on .557/.487/.882 shooting splits across 16 playoff games. He subsequently inked a lucrative new three-year, $51MM deal to remain in Los Angeles earlier this summer.
There’s more out of the Pacific Division:
- Imaging on the injured left calf of Kings big man Trey Lyles indicated a mild strain, per James Ham of ESPN 1320 Sacramento (Twitter link). Ham adds that the team is hopeful Lyles will be back soon, though he will be sidelined for at least a few days.
- After having survived the Warriors’ purging of some key young players, third-year lottery picks Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody are looking to have big seasons, writes Monte Poole of NBC Sports Bay Area. Both have performed well in the preseason for Golden State. “I’ve got to cut the turnovers down a little bit,” Kuminga said. “I’m working on it and watching film. We’re supposed to watch film with the coaches about the turnovers.”
- Thanks especially to his defensive fluidity, newly acquired Suns swingman Nassir Little has already impressed during his first preseason in Phoenix, writes Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic. “You can put him on the team’s best player at multiple positions,” head coach Frank Vogel said. Vogel is hopeful Little can also contribute as a shooter. The 6’5″ forward connected on a career-high 36.7% on 2.9 looks per game from long range in 2022/23.