Deandre Ayton up Why the Lakers? This is where it counts (paraphrasing) Won't take anything for granted He's ready to hold his own Mentioned PR with Luka and setting screens Mentioned a defensive anchor
Max Klieber interviewed by Bres Mentioned finishing rehab, getting stronger Mentioned Ayton, they've gone full 5 on 5
Marcus Smart up Never imagined being a Laker Mentioned being the "dog" Worked on getting healthy Control what you can control
Gabe Vincent interviewed by Bres Worked on catch and shoot, and getting healthier Mentioned stretching the floor and playing D
Jake Laravia up Mentioned hitting 3's, playing defense Got married, dad's a huge Laker fan Got to work immediately after getting signed
Dalton interviewed by Bres Wants to go out and hoop, mentioned confidence Talked about overtraining before summer league
Adou Thiero up Worked on getting healthy, mentioned that he still has some swelling Expectations are to play hard and help the team
Bronny up Golf talk (seems to be a recurring theme) Excited about camp Talked about playing on ball (PG) G-league reps helpful
Vanderbilt up Having a healthy offseason meant he can work on his game Wants to learn from Marcus (a lot of the players mentioned the effect he'll have on the team)
Damn!! He never had surgery for anything right? Didn't someone fall into a knee and hyper extend it like happened to Bynum twice? But that was way back around NCAA tournament time.
I think players start practicing much sooner, pretty much all September. It's more unofficial preseason, but just this year we already got word that AR, Ayton and so on have been practicing in the facilities. It's a common thing that I believe minimizes the short preseason of nowadays Pretty smooth Media Day. With the exception of Thiero, everyone seems ready to go. A lot of platitudes and scripted answers as usual, but we seem to have a good group of guys that know what they have to do. Having Luka-Bron-AR really simplifies it for the role players, they know what they have to do and there's not much to overthink about I like the schedule too. You get 2 games in your first week, just to shake rust off and get those "game jitters" out of the system. Then you get a full week of practice and basically start the season mode, with 4 games in 6 days, with a b2b, to get used to the usual game-rest-travel-game they'll be into for several months
I think it strenghtens Rui's case to start put of the gate. I don't believe Rui will be the starter late in the season, but I'm ok with him starting now and use that existing chemistry while bringing Smart slowly but steady to being able to play around 25 minutes every game. He can't miss games late in the season, so I don't mind bringing him slowly
