“The Lakers have continued making recent trade calls in attempts to move Dalton Knecht instead of outright waiving him, with LA having communication with the Bucks, Bulls, and Jazz, among others, sources told @ClutchPoints. It’s become clear Knecht’s future isn’t with the Lakers.”

“I’m told the Lakers had approached the Bucks about a deal where they’d land Jericho Sims, but the Bucks had not been all that receptive to such a move with LA for just a single second-round pick.

“We will see if the Lakers can get any sort of deal done involving Knecht, but they’ve been trying to do so for months. Based on the way things have progressed and no real trade scenario emerging to this point, I would personally lean in the direction of no trade happening.”

Imagine you had a coworker who was decent at his job but not really what the team needs. Everybody knows he won’t be there long, but they wanna try to make the most of hi strengths while he’s there, encouraging him (crunk juice, etc).

Upper management realizes they have an (risky, but reasonable upside) opportunity to get off of him before he’s put into a situation that is objectively better for everyone involved but likely won’t go over well with him (becoming a 1st overall pick, who believes he’s a #1 overall pick but is now a backup center).

Worst case scenario you got 2 picks to try and fix some of your problems

After five preseason games, we can get an initial read on the players and the team, although the small sample size and the nature of preseason competition make it difficult to draw firm conclusions. As the regular season progresses, things will inevitably change and roles will become more clearly defined, but some of the trends we've seen so far have been consistent enough to give us an early impression of this roster.

I'll start with the positives. This is a new team, the players still need to learn how to play with each other, and the coaching staff still needs to figure out the rotations, so things should improve as the season progresses.

One thing that caught my attention is that throughout the preseason, we had at least eight players with a PER above the league average of 15. That's very good. We've seen this on Celtics and Thunder rosters in recent years, but in Lakersland, having more than four players perform at this level of efficiency is something we haven't seen since the Showtime era.

It's important to understand that PER isn't a stat that tells you who the best player is. It doesn't capture intangibles, defensive impact, and other things like that. It's more about how efficiently players performed in their roles, and I don't think anyone can deny that Ziaire's .981 TS% was impressive. Obviously, his sample size was tiny, so we shouldn't read too much into it, but he was effective in his role, just like several other players.

Mamu caught my attention in particular because he was the third player on the team in minutes played. His usage wasn't particularly low, and he consistently produced points and assists efficiently without turning the ball over. His rebounding rate was good for a forward, second only to Vando, who's an elite rebounder for his position. And when you look at his eDiff, you see a nice balance between offense and defense.

As I've said in previous posts, I like FIC as an impact metric. I mean, to rack up FIC, you can't just be doing cardio on the floor. Efficiency alone isn't enough, and if you're shitting the bed, you'll get punished for it. Again, it's not the best metric for evaluating defense, but it usually does a good job of representing how much players contribute in their roles.

Since FIC is cumulative, I'm using FIC/Min to better reflect each player's per-minute production during the preseason.

2026–2027 Los Angeles Lakers Preseason - FIC/Minute

Player FIC/Min

Sandro Mamu 0.635

Ziaire Williams 0.529

Jarred Vando 0.514

Walker Kessler 0.469

Luka Doncic 0.401

Austin Reaves 0.393

Cameron Carr 0.389

Jake LaRavia 0.363

Kevon Looney 0.347

Adou Thiero 0.282

Chris Manon 0.252

Quentin Grimes 0.230

Matisse 0.193

Jaden Hardy 0.190

Bronny James 0.079

Dalton Knecht 0.017

Vando's high ranking may surprise some folks here who call him garbage, but you always need context when reading stats. They don't lie, but they don't tell the whole story either. Vando played most of his minutes against 3rd stringers, so the only conclusion we can draw from these numbers is that he was amazing against 3rd string competition.

Now, we also need to talk about the bad stuff. Dalton and Bronny didn't make a case for themselves during the preseason. They are far from being NBA caliber players, even as 3rd stringers, while Hardy clearly separated himself from that group in his final preseason game.

Matisse's and Grimes' impact has also left something to be desired. However, you can't compare Matisse to Hardy based solely on their similar FIC/Min numbers because they have different roles. What we can say is that Matisse's impact against starters and backups was similar to Hardy's impact against backups and 3rd stringers.

I'd personally start Mamu at PF and use Ziaire as the POA defender to begin the season. IMO, the only other forward who is ready to start is Jake. Ziaire is tall, but he doesn't play like a forward. He can't rebound, and he can't handle physical contact. Murray knocked him off balance yesterday with a minor bump, and that's not going to cut it against stronger forwards. Matisse isn't tall enough, and Adou is still too raw. If we develop him properly, he might become that guy in the future.

Grimes has been an efficient off-ball scorer, and his TS% is very good, but he isn't assertive with the ball, and his defensive impact during the preseason was negligible apart from the game against the Warriors. Is he only effective against smaller guards?

Dalton is the odd man out, but I don't see any reason to keep Bronny, and Mañon hasn't made a case for earning a roster spot either. Bronny led the team in TO%, followed by Dalton. For players with such low usage, that's absolutely unacceptable.

The last three paragraphs reflect my opinions, and I'm open to discussion. However, I can't change the stats I posted earlier. If you've watched the games, you know that a few players like Luka weren't in "real game mode", which is to be expected from established veterans. Meanwhile, other players, for various reasons, didn't get enough playing time to draw any early conclusions about them.

This post contains content not supported on old Reddit. Click here to view the full post

This post contains content not supported on old Reddit. Click here to view the full post

Great in-depth clip by Tim Legler and coach as they explore how Luka can advance the ball in transition, creating early advantages and opening high-quality scoring chances.

We've seen some brand new offense from the Lakers!

Through 4 preseason games we've seen plenty of familiar entry concepts from LA (Away, Delay, etc.).

Flare entries have been the new addition, flowing to a variety of P&R/DHO attacks.

Here's all LA showed in the 19 plays this was used so far!

This is for tonight’s Nuggets game. Bummed that I couldn’t get our moment recorded during the halftime fan cam segment … anyone know of a way to obtain the footage?

With LeBron James gone, Luka Dončić could be in line for a massive statistical season. One prediction has him becoming just the second player in NBA history to lead the league in both scoring and assists in the same season.

Read for free.

Hope they do, it would be nice to see another dose of Kessler and checking out Sexton in the rotation. Sexton looked good in practice yesterday although did not see him in 5vs5.

Do not have much to say other than the fact that I am SO excited to finally have a legit, starting caliber center after seeing DA, Hayes, Koloko, Len, etc play after AD was traded