EL SEGUNDO — In an ideal world, the Lakers would have had more of their fresh-face roster – of nine new players – around for preseason games.
“We would love to have gotten looks with everybody healthy and everybody good to go, but we also have to be smart with an 82-game season,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said Thursday.
But the reality for the team is that they’re searching for what life will be like together.
They got franchise center Walker Kessler back on Sunday, and he debuted in Las Vegas on Tuesday in his first look in purple and gold.
But guard Collin Sexton (lower-left leg injury) has yet to debut in live action during the preseason – practicing in every portion but five-on-five drills – while forward Ziaire Williams (left foot contusion), wing Adou Thiero (“maintenance,” per Redick) and rookie guard Cameron Carr (undisclosed) have all dealt with “day-to-day” ailments that have kept them off the floor in the latter stages of the preseason.
Redick said Thursday that Williams was a full participant in practice, while Thiero “participated,” but didn’t stipulate how much or how little the second-year player was on the court.
Carr, on the other hand, was out with an undisclosed injury, Redick said.
When asked if Sexton, the only fully-guaranteed contract player on the Lakers to not have played in the preseason, would play in the season opener, Redick said that he was “trending in the right direction.”
Last week, when a reporter asked Redick if he had any worries about Sexton’s opening night status, the Lakers coach said “no.”
The Lakers play in their final preseason game on Friday night at 7:30 p.m. against the Denver Nuggets, their fifth in a slate of tune-ups for Wednesday’s regular-season opener against the Golden State Warriors at 7 p.m. at Crypto.com Arena.
For guard Quentin Grimes, who has played in each of the preseason games for the Lakers and has shot 53.3% from the field and 41.2% from beyond the arc, he still doesn’t know who is in the starting lineup.
Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves and Kessler take up three spots. But Grimes, Williams and wing Matisse Thybulle, among others, are still fighting for the two extra spots.
“I guess ya’ll going to find out on Wednesday,” Grimes said of the Lakers starting lineup.
Extra points
In the annual NBA general managers survey released Thursday morning, the Lakers were voted as the sixth-best team in the Western Conference. Doncic finished top three as the league’s best point guard, shooting guard and small forward, finishing in first place for the latter position. …
But Doncic wasn’t among those voted for as most likely to win the MVP. When asked about when to start advocating for his players for the league’s top honor, Redick kept it blunt.
“I keep the same rule that I kept when I worked in the media,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about MVP until at least 50 games into the season.”
The Lakers made a pair of Exhibit-10 signings, signing and then waiving guard Jahmir Young on Wednesday evening. After waiving Young, the Lakers signed guard Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones in his place for the end of the preseason. Both are likely to end up on the G League’s Coachella Valley Lakers.
Young, 25, was an All-G League second team player for the Sioux Falls Sky Force last season, the minor league outfit for the Miami Heat, and had his player rights transferred over to the Coachella Valley Lakers during the offseason.
Tait-Jones, 25, played at UC San Diego and was Big West Player of the Year in 2025, spending his first professional season in Latvia, where he was the Latvian–Estonian Basketball League Final MVP.