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There’s a lot we still don’t know about the Los Angeles Lakers going into next season: what they’re going to do with their draft pick, who they’re going to bring back and who they’re going to add in free agency. What we do know is who (and when) they’ll be playing in the preseason — exciting stuff!
Here is the full schedule that was released by the Lakers on Tuesday:
Oct. 3 vs. Brooklyn Nets
Oct. 6 @ Phoenix Suns
Oct. 8 @ Golden State Warriors
Oct. 10 vs. Phoenix Suns
Oct. 12 vs. Golden State Warriors
Oct. 14 @ Sacramento Kings
The Lakers will tip-off their season against the Brooklyn Nets, a team that many expected them to play in the NBA Finals. Unfortunately, due to injuries to both teams’ star players, we weren’t able to see that Finals matchup, let alone a fully-healthy regular season game. So, hopefully, their matchup on Oct. 3 will give us our first opportunity to see LeBron James and Anthony Davis go up against Kyrie Irving, James Harden and Kevin Durant.
They’ll then play the Phoenix Suns, who they were eliminated by in the first round of the 2021 NBA Playoffs. The Lakers likely would have won that series if Davis was healthy but he wasn’t and next season, they’ll have to prove that they deserved to represent the Western Conference in the NBA Finals, starting with that game against the Suns. And if they the need the extra motivation, it’s possible that the Suns will be the reigning NBA Champions by then.
After that, they’ll head to the Chase Center to take on the Golden State Warriors, who are expected to have two lottery picks and a healthy Klay Thompson on their team. It almost definitely won’t be as exciting as their play-in matchup from last season, but it will be fun nonetheless.
The Lakers will play the Suns and Warriors one more time each before wrapping up their preseason schedule against the Sacramento Kings at the Golden 1 Center. The Lakers went 1-2 in the regular season against the Kings.
For more Lakers talk, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts. You can follow this author on Twitter at @RadRivas.