Spectrum SportsNet will air every Lakers scrimmage in the bubble

It’s probably fair to guess that if you frequent this blog, you’re among the many that have missed having Lakers basketball on television. And if that does describe you, we have some good news: You no longer have to wait until the team’s first game on July 30 to watch this team play (at least if you live in Los Angeles), because Spectrum SportsNet has announced that they plan to televise the Lakers’ previously announced scrimmages.

They also revealed a few new details about their coverage of the seeding games in their press release:

Lakers play-by-play announcer Bill Macdonald, analyst Stu Lantz and reporter Mike Trudell will call the remaining eight games of the regular season, along with Chris McGee, Allie Clifton, Mike Bresnahan and NBA Hall of Famer “Big Game” James Worthy providing pre and postgame coverage – all from the SportsNet studios in El Segundo.

The network’s signature studio show, Access SportsNet: Lakers, airs live every Monday through Friday at 7 p.m. until the restart of the season, and will move to six days a week beginning July 30 when the season resumes. On game days, Access SportsNet: Lakers live pregame coverage will begin 60 minutes prior to every game, followed by Access SportsNet: Lakers postgame coverage that will include player and coach interviews, game highlights and in-depth analysis from the Access SportsNet: Lakers expert studio team.

The Lakers’ matchups with the Mavericks, Magic and Wizards will be just essentially glorified preseason games for all of these teams to start to get their legs under them, but this is still a chance to get our first look at this squad in several months, and see how they’re rounding into form after a few weeks of training camp at Disney World. We will also (likely) get to see J.R. Smith and Dion Waiters take the floor as Lakers for the first time, which should at the very least be a quick glimpse at what kind of shape they’ve been keeping themselves in during their time out of the league, and during quarantine.

Also, I’m sure we will all react totally rationally to the first few mistakes the team makes, and head coach Frank Vogel’s rotations. Obviously.

But in all seriousness, we’ve almost made it, everyone. The NBA is nearly back, and as impossible as it seemed just a few months ago, the Lakers will really be taking the floor again in a few weeks. These scrimmages may not mean much in the grand scheme of things, but they’re the start of the resumed journey for banner No. 17, and every step in that attempted trip is going to be must-watch.

For more Lakers talk, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts. You can follow Harrison on Twitter at @hmfaigen.