Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - BONUS EPISODE: Sloppy, Poor Shooting Lakers Lose Preseason Opener, 103-81

Episode Date: October 4, 2025

The Lakers opened the preseason without a lot of rotation players in uniform (no Luka Dončić, LeBron James, Marcus Smart and Gabe Vincent), and it certainly looked liked they missed them. While there were some good individual performances, as a group the Lakes were sloppy and couldn't make a bucket to save their lives (31 percent overall, 17 percent from downtown), losing to Phoenix 103-81. Austin Reaves played will in his minutes, with 20 points, three rebounds and two dimes. Rui Hachimura was active defensively and was second among starters with 11 points, but he was also 3-12 from the floor. Deandre Ayton? Eight rebounds and two blocks in 18 minutes... but also only one point and two shots, overall. Jarred Vanderbilt definitely looked mobile and active, which is great, but also didn't have a field goal in four tries. Dalton Knecht? 2-10. Bronny James? 1-12! Jake LaRavia played a nice game, as did the bulked up Jaxson Hayes. But overall, this was a disjointed team effort. Nothing to sweat so early in the preseason, with so many important players out of the lineup, but surely JJ Redick will want something a little better on Sunday.  HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!5-Hour ENERGYEnough with boring, flavorless caffeine, it’s time to give your caffeine a flavor upgrade with 5-hour ENERGY®️ shots. Get the favorites you love or be bold and try something new in-store and online at https://www.5hourENERGY.com or Amazon today. PelotonLet yourself run, lift, flex, and push forward. Explore the new Peloton Cross Training Tread+ today at https://www.onepeloton.com.Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONNBA at https://monarchmoney.com/lockedonnba for 50% off your first yearFanDuelRight now, new customers can bet just FIVE dollars and if your bet wins—you’ll get THREE HUNDRED dollars in bonus bets to use across the app. Download the FanDuel app now by visiting https://FanDuel.comto get startedFANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everyone, welcome to a special preseason opener bonus episode of Locked on Lakers, Brian Kaminetsky, Andy Kaminetsky. Lakers lose what looked good, what didn't. We'll tell you next. You are Locked on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Thanks to everybody for making Locked on Lakers your first listen to every day, Monday through Friday. Andy for the first time in a little while. Sometimes on weekends,

we are bringing the first listen of every day and all that comes. I forgot even when I was so excited to be back with a real game to talk about. Lock and Liquors on YouTube is where you can go hang out with over 36,000 subscribers that are all hoping things get better over the course of free season and into the regular season after the Lakers lose 103 to 81 in Palm Springs, right?

That's where that arena is outside Palm Springs, Accrucure Arena. The Lakers notably playing with, this game in the idea, I think was definitely notable for who wasn't playing. Luca Donchich and LeBron James and Dave Vincent and Marcus Smart and Addu Thierro. Not that we're expecting a lot from him in the regular season, but still, and also no Maxi Claibu. So definitely short some guys who are both rock stars and also potential rotation players

this one. Four that are, as JJ Reddick recently said, rotation locks. He didn't specifically name LeBron, but I'm going to go out on a limb there. Yes. Well, at the very least, in pencil. So that said,

Andy, there were shooting was awful. It was kind of an ugly game. It was a little disjointed. Again, Lakers losing in Phoenix 103 to 81. What was your what were some of your takeaways? from this one. I mean, it was disorganized and sloppy on both sides of the ball, as I would have

expected, given a training camp just open, and they've been without some key guys during training camp for basically the entire time. They've had no LeBron or Marcus Smart, Gabe Vincent. He has been a full participant for like a practice or two, but certainly not many of them. And in a game like tonight where you're missing in particular, Luca and LeBron to help orchestrate the offense. And then, you know, Vincent as another secondary ball handler. Exactly. We were definitely short ball handlers. And short in general organization. You are down for guys who can help as primary or secondary ball handlers or wheel greasers and guys who frankly just have the experience to help get you through some of the rough patches of a

preseason. So in that sense, it played out a lot like I expected. I mean, we talked about this heading into them. We'll get into a few individual performances, but one of the big things that I had been looking for heading into this game was, does Jared Vanderbilt look as good in terms of movement and physicality and the pre-injury form that JJ Reddick and a lot of his teammates had been talking about throughout training camp. It's actually been one of the most. more prevalent talking points. And I got to say, on that front, I was very pleased with what I saw. I thought Vando looked a lot.

Like, the stats will not jump out at you. And, you know, the corner three is definitely still a work in progress. Yeah, he didn't have field goal. I mean, right. And that'll be part of a theme. But like, I think, yeah, I agree with it. He looked lively and mobile and was often disruptive defensively. like there was one possession that he guarded two different ball handlers before eventually

creating a turnover. And stuff like that will matter over the course of a season. I think it was a game where individual performances were certainly better than the team performance overall. I mean, you know, in terms of good team performance or good over individual performances, Austin Reeves, who was sort of the big headliner playing in this game, 20 points, hit all seven of his three free throws, three rebounds to assist in 20 minutes. It's certainly a very efficient night. I thought Jake La Ravia played well, both statistically, and then kind of I test seven, seven points five rebounds in 19 minutes.

And then from there, it's like, you know, you look at Jared Vanderbilt, was very disrupted defensively. The offensive line was sort of ugly. And I think you kind of, you pick that out in a lot of ways for virtually everybody else who played. Rui Hachamura, pretty dis, I actually was, you know, pleased with how well he was moving and how disruptive he was defensively, got his hands on a couple balls for deflections and was involved, you know, away from the ball, seemed to be pretty engaged. He had 11 points, second among starters, but was three of 12 from the floor. So, you know, DeAndre Aiton was

silent offensively, and that's something that we can get into. But in 18 minutes, he had eight rebounds. The Lakers are going to be needing a lot of boards from him. He had two blocks. You know, and then, you know, you just get down to it. The Lakers as a team shot 31 percent. And from three point range, they shot 17 percent. Dalton Connect and Brony James were a combined three of 22. It is hard to win when you miss that many shots. And just, you know, I thought Brani actually did some good point guard things in his minutes. But man alive, he just, you know, he couldn't shoot to save his life and connect wasn't much better. It was that kind of night, I think, from an offensive standpoint for the

Lakers. They just couldn't hit a shot. They couldn't hit a shot. And it's also the quality of a lot of their shots were not great. Again, as you would expect with so many, forget just the idea of Luca and LeBron are two of the best orchestrators in the game, much less the two best ones on this team. When you're down those two and Smart and Vincent, like you just, you're low on guys who can help create quality looks or even just, depending on what you think of Smart and Vincent as playmakers, just better looks and better organization, like better,

better flow than what was typically happening in this game. So again, it's not surprising in any sense. You know, and they had some moments as a team. There was a period where they went on a 12-0 run. A lot of the- Start of the second quarter were the best minutes. The Lakers played their starters at the top of the first quarter, top of the second quarter, and then to start the half.

And that 12-0 run was a lot of Austin Reeves' offense with, some pretty good team defense creating either turnovers or stops or things like that. And like in in those maybe, I don't know, six minutes of the game, you saw like the skeleton of what it could look like with all hands on deck. And you're like, okay, this is interesting. But like, for example, DeAndre Aiton, the lob threat that we hope he's going to be. and like the pick and roll partner and force that Laker fans are hoping for in the Lakers' front office wanted when they signed him, you're not going to see that version of him without at least

one of Luca or LeBron out there. Well, I mean, it's not on a consistent level. Certainly not the fully realized version. I mean, I think you could hope, you know, there were a couple plays where, you know, Brony, you know, hit Aiton with a nice little pocket pass in the first quarter. and Aitin didn't finish it. Like there were, you know, a couple, you had a,

the Lakers I thought, I mean, I know Aitin didn't get a lot of shots up, but I felt like the Lakers were, were hyper aware, very, especially early in the game, that they had a post-presence type center, which they haven't had since AD was gone.

You know, that they were, I think, stopped to look like, oh, where's Aet? And he's who's on him? Is he posting up? is he open? And I think that sort of slowed down their offense a little bit. But, you know, Aitin was, and this is a criticism of his game, you know, was not aggressive,

sort of seeking out contact. He wasn't kind of playing through potential, you know, when you get the ball in the low block, turning quickly, but sort of fading away rather than pushing towards the basket, which again is a criticism of his game. He does not get to the free throw line very often. So stuff like that. But 100%, you're not going to see the fully realized version of what you want from him when your only real NBA level guard is Austin Reeves.

Like, you know, no disrespect to Brown. He's working his way up there. And I think he looks much more comfortable. But he's not a rotation caliber guard yet, not in that way. No. So again, the sloppiness was there on both sides of the bottom. ball. I imagine they missed, you know, defensively the communication, if nothing else that you get from LeBron. Yeah. Reddick said the communication was poor. Like they did certain things that they've

been emphasizing over the course of the week, communication being one of them. Communication was not high on his list of things they did well. No. I mean, the list of things they did well couldn't be that long anyway. I mean, he likes, like he there were things he did like, but they, they see the talking was not good. They were not nearly as communicative as they needed to be. I am not surprised. I mean, I don't expect, for example, a starting lineup of Austin, Aiton, La Ravia, Vando, and Rui does not strike me as a high communication crew.

Just if I'm being totally honest about this, it doesn't. That doesn't mean that those guys can't be part of very good communicative crew. But they're not going to be the basis. They're not going to be the basis. They should be. Being able to communicate on the floor, call out, you know, coverages and all that kind of stuff is something that every player ought to be able to do. It's not a question of on floor leadership.

But like if you're on the floor in the NBA, you should be able to communicate. I'm not giving them a pass for not doing it. I'm saying I'm not giving them a pass for not doing it. I'm saying when you look at that group, That is not a group that strikes me as a super high communicative group. I mean, I just doesn't. Okay.

I mean, that's that's fair enough, I guess. I'm not sure why that should be. Because they've never, most of those guys, at least certainly when I've seen them as Lakers. And based on their rep, I mean, D'Andre Aiton does not have the reputation as like a defensive quarterback locally. Like, just period. Right. So, I mean, this is this is the real. Okay, that makes a little more sense.

But either way, it's like those types of things, those are habits. Those are things that you have to build up. Also, obviously, your communication is always better when you are more familiar with what's going on, when you're more comfortable and you're in the flow and you play with guys and all that kind of stuff. So look, I mean, there's, it is far too early to start worrying about, you know, anything we saw. I think there were enough good things, especially individually, to kind of look forward to the rest of the preseason and not be, you know, super concerned about it. And obviously, you need to get your best players on the floor. Redick said before the game, they're hoping to have two games over these six that would qualify as dress rehearsals,

but they're obviously have to be mindful of who's available and who's not. They're not going to force anybody on the floor. it is that to even use that language is a decent, you know, makes you feel at least a little bit more decent about the prospect of LeBron getting on the floor for the preseason. But either way, you know, they'll be dressed rehearsing without him for a couple games. This wasn't one of those games.

Sunday will not be one of them either. Luca won't be playing in that. Probably not LeBron either. He hasn't really practiced. He won't play until they practice. They get a week. Well, he's not going to play. Yeah, they get a full week before the next preseason game.

If LeBron practices over the course of that week, then maybe you can expect to play, but he won't be on the floor on Sunday. So I certainly, by the way, just as a quick side note, I hope that they get at least a little bit of an opportunity in this preseason to get those guys on the court together. Like I understand the thought process, for example, of not playing Luca this weekend given how much he played with Slovenia, Eurobasket. All of that in a vacuum makes sense.

But there can be a fine line between not wanting to overtax Luca or some of the key guys, but also getting the most out of the training camp, which was one of the things that we had said was a big advantage for the Lakers heading into this season, the idea of an actual training camp in preseason with Luca, with LeBron, with Austin, and everybody else to build that foundation, you only get so much of that from scrimaging and training camp. You need to play actual teams.

I think that's why they're hoping that they can have those two, you know, he's sort of calling out two games that you would really want to treat as those dress rehearsals. And again, it makes me think at least they are optimistic that LeBron will be available to play in a couple of them. I hope so. So we'll see. I mean, I think that's the ideal.

They're certainly not dismissing, you know, the importance of it. I just, you know, you, you can't sacrifice the potential, you know, health of one of your stars, but of course.

Yeah, I mean, they're clearly putting an emphasis on trying to get, you know, a couple games, you know, treated like, you know,

with the real rotation. So we'll see how that goes. We, of course, will be back on, after Sunday's game with a full show to talk about what happened, you know, on Sunday against Golden State.

And then, of course, what we're looking for over the course of the rest of training camp. But first, Andy, we have to tell people about this. Well, that Lockdown Lakers is brought to you by Monarch Money. Most people cannot name all their financial accounts or even what they're worth, whether 401Ks, properties, investments. And if you don't have that full picture, you can end up leaving money on the table. And that's why there is Monarch money, an all-in-one personal finance tool

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