EL SEGUNDO — Just a few days after being announced as the Lakers’ newest sideline reporter for Spectrum SportsNet, Roqui Theus was still basking in the newfound reality of covering an organization she grew up around.
As she stood outside UCLA Health Training Center – the Lakers’ training facility – following the team’s annual preseason media day three weeks ago – Lakers legend James Worthy, who also works as a Spectrum SportsNet Lakers analyst, made a beeline toward Theus.
Worthy put his hand on Theus’ shoulder as he walked by. His message was simple, sweet. The Basketball Hall of Famer told Theus, the daughter of former NBA All-Star Reggie Theus, that he would be there in support.
Anything she needed, “Big Game James” was there to help.
That’s the full-circle world for Roqui Theus, joining the Spectrum broadcast team for the 2026-27 season after 13 years working as a broadcast journalist. Or as she said several times during an interview last week with the Southern California News Group before her sideline reporting debut during the Lakers’ preseason game against the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday night in Las Vegas, it’s all about “alignment.”
“My favorite word is alignment, and it’s just blaring at me right now,” said Theus, who will fulfill sideline duties for 37 games this season. “I feel really proud to be back in L.A., covering basketball, you know?”
Theus can quickly point to her first memories around basketball. She would go to Staples Center alongside her father when he worked as a broadcaster for ESPN, TNT, and for a short period of time, on the Lakers’ television broadcasts in the early 2000s.
“I was just going to work with my dad, and I was watching him do his thing on the court, and I didn’t know that one day I would be doing the same,” she said of her father, who once coached the L.A. D-Fenders, then the Lakers’ NBA D-League team (now the Coachella Valley Lakers of the NBA G League). “Watching him take his steps in his own career, and watching him in the art of reinvention or pivoting or whatever you want to call it, he’s just been an inspiration and instrumental in how I approach my own career and in life in general.”
Family trips to NBA All-Star games – alongside her mother Elaine, younger siblings Reggie Jr. and Rhyan, and her dad – helped set a foundation of knowledge around the basketball world outside of playing the sport as a kid.
Roqui Theus recalled receiving a phone call from Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley when she was a kid, in what she calls another moment of alignment, considering she would go on to interview O’Neal as a professional broadcaster years later.
“I recall Shaq saying, ‘Hey, you better do good in school, or I’m gonna step on you,’ or something like that,” Roqui Theus said with a laugh. “It’s just very funny things like that. You don’t even understand the magnitude as a kid, but when you’re older interviewing him on your show in Las Vegas, you’re like, ‘Wow, look at this, another full-circle moment.’”
Eventually, Theus played college basketball for UC Irvine from 2007-2011 – where the L.A. native introduced herself to Kobe Bryant when he used to train at the Orange County campus.
In Irvine, Theus built an internship during her senior year alongside the athletic communications staff to build her interview skills – after she noticed she didn’t see many interviews being conducted on campus.
At a university that doesn’t offer a broadcast journalism degree – Theus said she took it upon herself to broaden her skillset. She also wrote an advice column for UCI’s student newspaper.
“At some point I thought, ‘I want to play in the WNBA,’” said Theus, who was a child actor growing up. “At some point I thought, ‘I want to be the next Tyra Banks.’ At some point I thought, ‘I want to be a news anchor,’ because I loved people, I loved entertaining, I loved community, and I loved writing and storytelling. All of that comes together in broadcast journalism.”
Theus went on to work at local television stations in Reno, Sacramento, San Francisco and Los Angeles before a prolonged stay in Las Vegas working for KLAS, a CBS affiliate, as a host and reporter for their lifestyle and entertainment show. She spent more than five years reporting in Las Vegas.
Returning to Los Angeles in December 2024, she went national with “Extra TV” with freelance coverage early in 2025, interviewing celebrities – the first of whom was Harrison Ford.
“If I can interview Harrison,” she joked, “I can interview (Lakers coach) JJ (Redick).”
Preparing for her new role as a sideline reporter, where she will split duties with Mike Trudell (who is entering his 19th season covering the Lakers), she shadowed a variety of L.A.-area reporters.
Theus said she shadowed Spectrum SportsNet LA host and reporter Kirsten Watson at a pair of Dodgers games, Spectrum SportsNet’s Nikki Kay at a Sparks game and Trudell at the Lakers’ preseason home opener last week. She also spent time shadowing the production and control room at Spectrum, hoping to best understand the efforts behind producing coverage.
Being at Crypto.com Arena wasn’t new to Theus, as her life’s journey has brought her there to watch basketball more times than she can count.
But last week, arriving at L.A. Live on Thursday for the Lakers’ preseason game against the Sacramento Kings, was her first time being on the clock in the arena with Spectrum.
The feeling was far different.
“(Sandro Mamukelashvili) made a comment yesterday to Mike Trudell in his walk-off interview saying, ‘I’m walking around Crypto, and it’s surreal,” Theus said. “That’s how I feel.”
At T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Tuesday – in the market she used to call her permanent home – Theus will introduce herself to Lakers fans on television.
Las Vegas was the launching pad for Theus’ broadcasting career, she said.
It was where she found a spot between basketball and entertainment, hosting events for the NBA Summer League at UNLV, and for shoe brands such as Nike and Adidas.
“I was moderating panels with current NBA players, current WNBA players – having those conversations and just kind of making my imprint in the sports world, saying, ‘Guys, I’m still here. This is still me. I’m still a hooper, and now I can do it.’”
Once more Las Vegas will serve as her launching pad, this time as a Lakers sideline reporter.
That, Theus said, is just more proof of the “alignment” that brought her back to Los Angeles, and eventually, covering the Lakers.
“Over the last 13 years, I knew sports were a part of my world and eventually, I could step back into it,” she said. “I never really knew that it would be the Lakers, and I never knew that this was coming, but I couldn’t think of a better way to get back on the court and be home.”