Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Lakers vs. Warriors, Opening Night! Plus, Why Luka Dončić Raises LA's Ceiling More Than Anyone Else

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

The Lakers open the season tonight! The real games begin. It's Lakers vs. Warriors, on Peacock! (Something new for this year, and an early taste of a new TV arrangement for the NBA.) The Warriors are a team that mirrors a lot of what we think about the Lakrs. Obviously very good. Capable of beating any team in any series, even if they're not quite capable of winning four of them to get an NBA chip. But in any best-of-seven, if playing at full strength, nobody will want to see them. On the other hand, they rely on a bunch of old guys (more than the Lakers) and if anyone significant gets hurt? Forgettaboutit. (The Lakers in this sense have an advantage over the Warriors, because when people talk about old guys, it's really just LeBron.) So with LeBron injured, are the Lakers being knocked too far down in the West? What's a fair evaluation? And who can raise their ceiling, and the floor? What could happen that would rip a hole in that floor? Well, it starts with Luka. There's a massive difference between him performing like one of the two or three best players on the planet, and being a more conventional All-NBA level performer. Someone who'd make evan a second team. The Lakers are banking on him being the guy who averaged a 30 point trip-dub (more or less) two years ago in Dallas. That raises the team's ceiling. Anything less, and the Lakers may not get where they want to go. Meanwhile, deeper into the supporting cast, we explain why Deandre Ayton has tremendous ceiling-raising potential, while an injury to Marcus Smart or Jarred Vanderbilt could have an outsized impact relative to their skill level and spot in the proverbial pecking order.  HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky SEGMENT 1: The Lakers open the season tonight! SEGMENT 2: Is Ayton the team's best floor raiser?  SEGMENT 3: What about Luka?  Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!DoorDashNext time someone goes off for 50, use promo code NBA50the next day to get 50% off on DoorDash with DashPass — plus your shot at the Bag Drop.DashPass members only. 50% off up to $10 the day after a 50-point game with promo code. Terms apply.No Purchase Necessary. Ends April 13th. Open to U.S. residents 21 or older. Visit DoorDashInYourBag.com for full details.DoorDash — In your bag all season long. RobinhoodYou expect more from yourself. 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Hey, everyone, welcome to Locked on Lakers for Tuesday. Brian Kaminetsky, Andy Komenetsky, it is opening night of the 2025, 2026 NBA season. What factors will raise the Lakers ceiling or lower their floor will 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 of Every Day, Friday matter how or where you get your podcast. This one's always free and never behind a paywall.

Locked on Lakers on YouTube is where you can go hang out with over 36,000 subscribers to channel, Andy, so many ways to get locked on Lakers, whether it is through YouTube or the audio product, of course, delivered to you every day if you're a subscriber through Apple or through Spotify. That's where most of the subscribers come from. Get podcasts all over the place these days, Andy. That's just the way the technology works. It starts. Tonight, our long wait is over. Lakers versus Warriors on Peacock, which is something we've never said before.

And I, for one, Andy, very excited. I think this is going to be a really exciting Laker season. I think it's going to be a very entertaining Laker season. I think when you consider both the stakes of this season and that like, and this is something, by the way, you and I have never really discussed, maybe we will over the course of, you know, the week, if not the season,

And a season coming up where like three quarters of the team are in walk years, there's a lot of interest. That actually is not anything new. But that's unusual to have this many players. Oh, I know. I'm just saying with the Lakers, it has been a trend of late where a lot of guys are on like one year. Let me rephrase this many players who actually matter being on walk years. It's, I mean, everybody but Luca and like Vando are in walk years.

No, the structure of this team going forward and what it looks like, you know, if there's a, you know, successful walk years. Yeah, is is something that we will be talking about a lot over the course of the year, depending on how things go, because suddenly bunches of guys who are on expiring contracts maybe go to try to acquire some assets before, you know, they're not useful. Or maybe, you know, you use those to acquire things that you might be able to do to, to make. a larger run, but like the roster is in such an unusual place. And I think particularly now, given the Western Conference and the injury to LeBron James, because I think it was, it was a couple weeks ago before the LeBron, when we thought LeBron might still make the beginning of the season, it had seemed like the Lakers had settled in to that tier. The consensus was, Andy, that they had sort of settled into that tier behind Oklahoma City, behind Denver, and then after like the Van

Bleed injury in Houston, that like big chunk in the middle with, you know, maybe even slightly at the top of that. The Rockets, the wolves, the Clippers, the Warriors, all kind of bunched together. I think with the LeBron injury, it gets us to a place where now there really is a little bit of greater doubt around where this season is going to go. Like, you know, the Lakers can, if they choose to be that team that they can say, like, nobody really believes in us anymore. Like, they could start to play that card or approach the season from that perspective

of we're not being paid as close attention to. which whether it's true or not, that the Lakers, they're always paid attention to, I think can actually kind of be an advantage, you know, for a team to just go play. Like there's still a lot of moving parts for this team and a lot of things that need to get figured out and ironed out, and they need to just go play.

I agree that they need to go play. I don't agree with the assessment that they can just sort of play under the radar. That does not exist for a Lakers team with LeBron, with Luca, with all the questions surrounding them. They're never going to be, I don't mean under the radar. I just mean that where I think they are, I don't think there's a lot of freedom to this. I feel like they've been knocked down a tier and that other teams are expected now to do more than they are. That's probably true.

I just don't see it as an advantage. But either way, it doesn't matter. They got to play the season regardless. And the Warriors are an interesting team to open against just because they are, I think, in a lot of ways. a mirror image of the Lakers in terms of the potential to be a team that teams wouldn't want to play in the playoffs, even if you don't think they can win four rounds in a title. In any given round, if everyone is healthy,

given what the Warriors did with that Steph Butler lineup last year, the success they had, at least on paper, they look like a very successful team. They also have a ton of question marks, even more age-related. question marks than the Lakers do because the Lakers age-related question marks are really LeBron. Yeah, it was interesting. For my ESPNLA weekly Lakers show, Lakers talk, I did a preview of the game tonight against the Warriors with Samus Fendiari, the co-host of the Light Years podcast.

And he talked about how with Jimmy and Steph out there, like if nothing else, they believe internally that that level of play was real. He said he, like all of us, needs to actually see it over the course of an entire season. And also, without the added desperation of we just acquired Jimmy Butler, awesome. We're also like a 10 seed and we really need to pick it up. And the Lakers are no stranger to that either, like the idea of the urgency that can come from, no, seriously, we need to pick our asses up and get our asses in gear. if we're actually going to get into the play in much of the playoffs.

But one thing he did note, and it'll be interesting just watching this game and something I hope the Lakers put to the test, both Jonathan Cominga and Butler had been dealing with ankle issues, but Sam said the Cominga one, you know, it's legit, but it's more of like a tweak, whereas Jimmy Butler's is like a legit sprain. He thinks they're both going to play tonight,

but the Lakers should be looking to test that ankle of Jimmy's, especially because he hasn't played much in the preseason to begin with. So there may be a little bit of lack of cohesion between him and the other guys anyway. But if you put Jimmy to more of a physical test and you start seeing that strain, as Sam mentioned, they are a very different, more ordinary team with a lesser version or, you know, if one of them wasn't playing, but in this case, a lesser version of Steph or Jimmy. They just become much, much different. And by different, I mean worse.

And it's, you know, this is something that actually came up a fair amount in the, in the commentary for, for Monday show about the choice of the starting lineup. I do think it is, it is not a coincidence that the Gabe Benson thing is guaranteed only through Tuesday, through the game with the Warriors, just because of, how Golden State operates where there is so much motion and so many screens. And so, and Vando as a chaser is not, that's not, you know, through screens, screen navigation. He's done a good job, though, guarding Steph.

He actually has done that as an individual with that, he is that, that sort of screen navigation has never been his strong suit as a defender. And so I, you know, I think it could be a little bit of matchup. going, you know, calculus going on here. I wonder what the Lakers did with Schroeder in that series a couple of years ago against the Warriors. It's always

interesting though to open up against a team that is a little bit unconventional. And the warriors are still a group like that, you know, that, you know, don't play with traditional bigs. You know, they don't have a lot of that kind of size.

But like they just do things in it. And Steph is a, is, is not even a little like, he's a lot like Luca in the sense that he bends defenses in ways that other players just can't. Steph's ability to shoot from anywhere in, you know, like gone. It just changes how teams operate. So I love opening up against a team like this. It's fun.

Yeah, it's going to be very interesting. You see how JJ chooses to try to match up with the Warriors, like with Al Horford as, as a stretch big and Draymond as somebody that you can put all over the court because they don't, they run so much through him all over the place. And even though he's not a shooter, he's such a good facilitator. It's kind of like Andrew Bogot years ago, you know, you could use him out of the high post as a non-shooter because he's such a good pastor. You know, Yolkich and Marcassal are also shooters, but it's the same principle. There's no natural matchup defensively for Dionne.

Aiton in this game. So I'm curious to see exactly what they do with him. You know, who guards Jimmy Butler? What do you do with Draymond? These are all interesting questions. And I'm very, very curious to see what JJ does and how much of a glimpse this could provide into his thinking for the whole season. Because again, there are not natural, obvious answers, I think, are obvious defensive matchups with the Warriors and what we think, at least, is going to be the starting lineup for the Lakers. You mentioned DeAndre Aiton. There was an interesting story this week in the athletic talking about players, you know,

to use that sort of X-factor categorization. Guys who can raise your ceiling, what are the factors DeAndre Aden and beyond that will raise the Lakers ceiling or potentially lower their floor in ways that people, aren't necessarily thinking about. We'll get to that next. First, you do want to tell you that Lockdown Lakers is brought to you by Built. Nobody likes paying rent, but if you must, you might as well get something for it. That's where Built comes in. Built is changing the game by turning your rent payment into real awards that you can actually use.

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So when you try to figure out, we talked a little bit in the first segment, like where are the Lakers in the conference? Not title contenders in the sense that like you picture them as like, oh yeah, like if it's not Oklahoma City, it's going to be the Lakers. Like that's not what this team is.

But there's certainly a scenario in which the Lakers are there at the end of the year. How do they get there? What are the things that can raise up the floor for the Lakers? D'Andre Aiton in this story from the athletic Fred Katz that wrote, absolutely one of those guys. I 100% agree. Yeah, he picked the five most pivotal role players in the NBA of this season.

He chose Kevin Porter Jr. with the Bucks. DeAndre Hunter with the Cavs, Terran Shannon Jr., with the Timberwolves, who I really like. Reed Shepard with the Rockets, who I'm very intrigued by. And then D'Andre Aiton. And here's some of what Fred wrote, quote, there's no louder hit or miss role player than Aitin,

a former number one pick who signed with the most glamorous franchise of them all. He's been an up-and-coming star, then the starting center for a team that made it to the finals and a lack of the physical big, who refuses physicality as he wastes away on losing squad, all of this before his 28th birthday. And then he goes on to talk about how Luca Dantzic has made a lot of big men worse than DeAndre Aiton look incredible and how Aiton can be a great outlet for both

Luca and LeBron when they attacked the hoop. He said, quote, he can operate out of the short roll, receiving the basketball around the free throw line or passing or even pulling up from there. When he's open, despite its gloomy reputation, an Aitin mid-range jumper is not death. He's one of the league's most accurate shooters from that area. He can keep those types of plays in his game, but it can't be all he does. And then particularly talked about how Aiton is not a player who operates with a ton of physicality. He has averaged for his career, 2.3 free throw attempts per game in 31 minutes. That is not a lot.

And in the preseason, he is basically on that same pace. And it's interesting to think about this, I think, with Aiton, just from the perspective of physicality, grading and evaluating what we've seen. the preseason because physicality in a lot of ways can be related back to motor and desire and willingness different elements that DeAndre Aiton has been, to put it mildly questioned about over the course of his career. And while we are not seeing any type of uptick in terms of physicality that would lead to getting to the line, I do think that there are signs of good physicality from Aiton in this preseason that I think Laker fans could get optimistic about.

One thing in particular is Doc Franco, a Slovenian basketball writer. I was hoping you would mention this. He's covered Luca since his days with Real Madrid. Excellent Twitter follow. He's actually been on our show before. But these two tweets, Luca and Reeves pick and roll chemistry with Aiton is not there yet, especially on Lops, but small sample size data skewed by good Luca and Austin shopmaking. is not as bad as some think.

1.1.40 points per chance on 66 picks this preseason. Last year, only Murray-yokic combo better. Again, very skewed data sharing this because I rewatched all 66 picks, Ait and Set for Luca and Austin. I think his screening was actually good. And they created a lot of three-point looks out of them. And to me, this is just one of the examples of where, and we can get into others as well,

you can look at some of DeAndre Aitin's physicality and say, is he getting to the line and being as aggressive around the rim offensively, maybe and physically as fans or even maybe Lucas teammates, JJ Reddick would want? No, but there are other ways where I do think his physicality has manifested itself positively in the preseason. I look at it this way too. It's like I don't expect DeAndre Aiton to be a wildly different play.

than he was over the course of his career. I just think, you know, there's certain guys. It's a little bit like, is this going to be the year that Vando starts making three-pointers? It is probably not going to be the year that Vando starts making three-pointers because Vando is just not a good three-point shooter. Like there are, there are exceptions, guards, there are, you know, guys who over the course of his crew, Jason Kidd went from God-awful outside shooter, very good by the end of his career. LeBron, that was the weakness of his game at the beginning of his career. And I was pretty good three-point shooter. And so, like, there are exceptions to this.

But, you know, DeAndre Aden is not going to triple his free throw rate this year. It would be great if he did. He's not going to. But, again, you have to compare this to what they were doing. Like, the stuff that he is good at and that he already has shown. And I watched some of these tape breakdowns of, like, the different screens and the different, says like it's different than post-trade last year. Like Jackson's not as good at that.

And the fact that Jackson can't pop, you know, that if he's going to set a screen and he's going to score, it is going to be at the rim. The fact that he can't, you know, that Aiton can do other things changes the dynamic defensively. So he doesn't have to be, Andy, the idealized version of Aiton that includes skills that he's never shown. He just needs to be good.

good at the stuff that he's always been good at would be very much good enough, I think, for the Lakers. Setting screens, rebounding at his best in terms of what he can do defensively. It will make a huge difference. Well, here's what I would say. I agree with you that in terms of the stat sheet, what DeAndre Aiton has done well,

if he keeps that up in particular double-digit scoring, double-digit rebounding and is rebounding in terms of things that are related in some ways to physicality. Sure. Rebounding in the preseason has been, well, it's been great even by DeAndre Aiton's standards. Like he's averaging nine rebounds a game in the preseason in 24 minutes per 36 minutes, that's 13 and a half rebounds. You know, whittle that down to low 30s for minutes.

You're talking about, I don't know, 11-ish rebounds a game. that will be more than good enough from DeAndre Aiton, and it's very in line with what he's always done. His blocks in the preseason block shots, almost two per game in just 24 minutes, that's well above his career averages, like way, way above. DeAndre Aitin averages about a block per game in 31 minutes. Like, I'm not even saying this is the year that DeAndre Aiton channels his inner

DeCenbe Matumbo. I'm just saying you're seeing signs of him doing certain things of physicality beyond just the free throw rate. To your point, though, about the needing to just do the things he does well, I agree with that on the stat sheet. I think the areas that will signal DeAndre Aten having a really good season are going to be the things that you will not know just by looking at the stat line, but watching the actual games. Like his attentiveness defensively. Yeah, I would agree with you there.

How much he is talking out there on the court. How much we hear about his teammates saying how much he is talking. Like, is he a problem in the lane in ways that don't necessarily come up in block shots, but make it clear, teams, you know, unless you go into some of the deeper stat dives or whatever, teams are struggling more to score around the rim. Like, you know, is he a decent connective player? If he gets that ball in the midpost and isn't necessarily looking to. shoot does he find the right guy to pass out?

Like things like that are the areas where I think the better version of DeAndre Aiton is going to shine through or not. There's a right. There's a consistency there. I would I would 100% agree with you this. Like the, you know, one knock on Aton over the course of his career, not serious enough, not, not enough attention to detail. There is a certain, I mean, he was on a team that went to the Western Conference final.

It's not like you can't stick him in a, in a lineup. it just the whole thing falls apart like but historically at least certainly by reputation that sort of consistent level of attention to detail and focus and willingness and just this understanding you can't turn it off it took ruy a good year and a half to kind of get that he's gotten better at it um even when you're well meaning some it's just it's a muscle memory type thing and so yeah i think that kind of thing he's going to have to and i hate the expression because it's so like sports radio like he's got to lock in andy um and you know be there but he kind of needs to lock in and understand the consistency that is required um to you know and that's

what one of the things it's so difficult about being a high end NBA player and a high in NBA team what else could raise their ceiling or lower their floor in ways that people might not be thinking about we'll tell you next lock on lakers is brought to you by mitt mobile If you're still overpaying for wireless, admit it you are. It's time to start saying yes to saying no. At Mitt Mobile, their favorite orders, no, no contracts, no monthly bills, no overages, no hidden fees, no BS, say yes to making the switch and getting premium wireless for just 15 bucks a month. Mint makes it simple. All plans come with high speed data, unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network.

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Limited time new customer offer for first three months. Only speeds may be slow above 35 gigabyte on the unlimited plan. Taxes and fees are extra. See MintMobile for details. I have a couple things in mind for, you know, ceiling razors and floor lowers and all that kind of stuff. But do you have any, you want to start? Hit me with yours. Hit me with yours.

The difference between Luca of last year and Luca of two years ago. And it doesn't necessarily seem like a ton because like Luca last year was still like really good. You know, you're talking about, you know, 20 something, you know, 26, 20. 27 points a game, you know, eight or nine rebounds a game, seven or eight assists a game. But that difference between like that extra 10%, that extra 15% or whatever, is what takes Luca from being a top 10 player in basketball to a top two, to a top three. And that is a huge difference. Like when your, when your best player is Yokic or Shea versus, and I mean no disrespect,

Donovan Mitchell, just to name a name. Jalen Brunson. These are elite NBA players. But they're not that guy. And so if you have one of those guys, LeBron has historically been, that covers a lot of faults. And so it's not just like cosmetic that you know,

it's not just like cosmetic that we, you know, you talk about like, Luca and this transformation of foreman playing so well at Eurobasket, playing so well in the preseason, it's because that difference between what he was two years ago, 30-something points a game,

10 rebounds, 10 assists a night, steal and a half. People don't talk about that part. That raises the Lakers floor and ceiling by a lot. Nobody on this team can raise the Lakers floor and ceiling more than Luca. Like there are other guys who I think can do one or the other. I think there are a few guys

who can do a bit of both, but nobody can do more of both than Luca. Like if he's healthy, his baseline foundation just by showing up raises you above the levels that several other teams can't match at their best. And then when things are really rolling with Luca at the controls, that ceiling raises up because again, he plays at a level that like two-ish percent of the league at their best can even think about matching. Do you, when you, do you get the impression that people are factoring in two years ago, Luca or something closer to that when they make their, their, their predictions for the Lakers?

Like, that's baked into the cake. Like, the expectation is you're going to get a guy who average. in the high 20s close to a triple double every night. Yeah, the reason I think so is as much as as much as the general prognostications for the Lakers among NBA pundits and previews and whatnot, have the Lakers anywhere from five to seven, maybe occasionally they pop up as a four, but mostly they're in that five to seven range. Luca is perennally listed as one of the leading. MVP candidates, like not the frontrunner, but one of the leading.

So that to me feels like an acknowledgement of we are going to have that type of season from Luca. And also, I've just heard enough people mention and acknowledge that Luca arrived physically in a state that did not match Peak Luca. He was coming off an injury and never really had the time to recover. And he kind of had to hit the ground running with the Lakers as relatively quickly as he could. But there's also the mental piece of this too. And I don't mean just when we've talked about this a lot, you know, getting past the betrayal from Dallas and that sucker punch trade

and the badmouthing and all that stuff, there's the element of enjoying himself again. Like J.J. Redick recently talked about how Luca is a player for whom having fun is a must. Like it's like a vital part of how he approaches the game. And as much as Luca is sickly competitive, and, is yelling all the time at refs and has, you know, has, you know, like a psychopathic body language and aura at times on the court. He is also somebody that really loves this and like has fun when he's out there. And the fun, I mean, I'm maybe projecting a little bit based off what other people have said and whatever and what Lucas said and we'll know for sure this season, but especially looking back on it, the fun piece of it did not seem to be there as consistently for Luca for very understandable reasons.

I think this year it's going to be there because he already looks like he's having a blast. I want to get to one more quick before we go. And it's I don't like, I don't like just saying like injuries just because it's so obvious. but I want to mention that just is one thing because I think it's related to this conversation about the starting lineup and how guys are managed and used. And one of the things that I think will especially lower the Lakers floor is a significant injury

to either Jared Vanderbilt or Marcus Smart. And I say this not because they're the team's best players because they're not. I say this because they're their least, do at least they don't have another guy like you can't you that specifically do what they do right you can't duplicate what marcus smart is in theory there to do with anybody else on the roster you can't do what jared vanderbilt is expected to do with anybody else on the roster with the possible exception of a du thiero only because he is you know comes from school with a reputation of uh you know

being a real defensive oriented player. And if you happen to catch the videos from practice on Monday, where the guy is like leaping out of the gym during rehab, it's like, I really, I will be the first to admit. I have really not seen. Nope.

A Dut Thero other than a couple clips online. I had, you know, I'd never heard of him when the Lakers drafted him. I would not pretend to be, you know, even in a Dut Thero, casual, but I am

really, really intrigued to see what he looks like, because the people I know who do pay, you do pay a lot of attention to this stuff, they say he is like, he is a sick athlete and like a relentlessly energetic, particularly just defender, but

player. But all of that, want to see this. Yeah, me too. But all of this notwithstanding, like to expect him to then go and play a really significant role in the rotation. You know, it's kind of a rawish prospect. That is not fair and it's not going to work. So either things went really wrong or the Lakers scouting department nails.

Like they nailed this. So, yeah, but like if Jake LaRavia gets hurt, there are guys who can approximate Jake LaRavia's skill set. If, you know, even reaps, you know, guys, you know, obviously they're bigger players. it becomes problematic. But an injury to Jared Vanderbilt that really either robs him of the athleticism that makes him a useful player,

an injury to Marcus Smartlake, that will hurt more than a mid-rotation injury for most teams. speaks to why, you know, we talked recently about Gabe Vincent's the starting lineup. One of the reasons I don't like it is it, I think groups smart and Vando naturally together more on the floor than I would want.

I would want to see their particular specialties lined up to be spread out more than theoretically than both coming off the bench. Right. But what I'm getting at kind of does potentially speak, at least with Smart initially, to why they might do it that way, is because you are trying to be very conscious of workload, at least early in the season.

So we'll see how it goes. tonight, Andy, is our first post-game Joe of the year. We did them after preseason games because we need the practice too. You know, stars, they're just like us. We took the preseason seriously, unlike the Lakers. We, you know, we played every game.

But I'm excited. It's going to be a really fun season. We're excited to have all of you with us. Thank you. All of the Slovenian crew here for a It's a four season. Medrabo. We are excited to get this going.

So Lock the Lakers on YouTube. And Ola. Luca Donchich, Real Madrid, real ones. Yes. Real ones. Exactly. Locked on Likers on YouTube as we go hang out with over 36,000 subscribers. We'll see everyone after the game.