Patrick Beverley may have leaked Lakers starting lineup vs. Warriors

Only in 2022 could an NBA player’s podcast leak a starting lineup for a team ahead of the first game of the season. And leave it to Patrick Beverley to be the one to do it.

Ahead of his first season in purple and gold in Los Angeles, Patrick Beverley launched his own podcast. To ultimately what should be to the surprise of no one, he needed very few episodes to draw some headlines.

Beverley may or may not have leaked the Lakers starting lineup of LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook, himself and Lonnie Walker IV for Opening Night against the Warriors during one of his latest episodes, though he tried to be coy about it.

Based on expectations and preseason performance, this could very well be the Lakers starting lineup on Tuesday. Though Russ moved to the bench for the final game of the preseason, head coach Darvin Ham made it fairly clear that it was not an indication of what the starting lineup would look like in the regular season.

Walker has been a bright spot for the Lakers during the preseason and very well could have played his way into the starting lineup. As the Lakers’ mid-level exception signing this offseason, the expectations are high for him within the franchise this season.

Now, if this were last season under Frank Vogel, this would probably be a bigger deal considering how much he protected them. But Ham has not been quite as guarded about his lineups. The Lakers are also not in a position where the gameplan on them drastically changes if Walker starts over, say, Austin Reaves or Kendrick Nunn or some other player.

But that doesn’t make it any less hilarious that PatBev, for seemingly no reason, just revealed the starting lineup. I feel terrible for Darvin Ham, but this is just tremendous content.

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