Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers

The Lakers have three players in the Locked On rankings of the top 100 NBA players. Luka Dončić (4), LeBron James (12) and Austin Reaves (58). They're the only team with an ultra elite player in Luka, and a (basically) top 10 guy in LeBron. Add in Reaves, and it's not a bad core.  But how does that compare to the rest of the conference? Do the Lakers have similar balance to the competition, even i...

Player rankings can be an irritating exercise, because in most ways theres rarely much functional difference between the 13th and 14th best player in the league, and certainly not the 73rd and 74th.  What can be meaningful, however, are player tiers. Guys can be grouped together in ways that make a little more sense in terms of impact. There are God-level stars, and regular stars. There are All-St...

Luka Dončić has gotten progressively better game to game throughout Eurobasket, helping Slovenia get on a hot streak. Sunday against Italy in the Round of 16, Luka put in his best effort of the competition, finishing with 42 points, 10 rebounds and three steals. He throttled the Italians, basically accounting for half of Slovenia's offense. He continued drawing fouls, getting to the line 16 times....

Pablo Torre broke a crazy potential scandal involving Kawhi Leonard, the Los Angeles Clippers, Steve Ballmer and some suspicious money. NBA Squad breaks down all that we know, what this could mean for the league and much more!   Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms… 🎧 https://lockedonpodcasts.com/podcasts/locked-on-nba   Locked On NBA League-Wide: Every Team, Fantasy, Draft, WNBA & More 🎧...

Luka Dončić is rounding into form at exactly the right time for Slovenia at Eurobasket. He put up 37 points and was a dime away from a triple-double as the Slovenias won 106-96. They'd already advanced to the Round of 16, but now do so on a two-game win streak, and with Luka looking outstanding.  Lakers fans, of course, are primarily concerned about how Luka's play in the tournament might foreshad...

Wednesday, news broke that Kawhi Leonard was the reported beneficiary of an endorsement deal that would, to say the least, run afoul of NBA regulations. The reporting from Pablo Torre Finds Out sent shockwaves through the league, and prompted strong denials from the Clippers. The NBA says they'll launch an investigation. So what happens now? And what happens if, in fact, Torre's reporting is verif...

How transformational has the Summer of Luka Dončić been? Not just for Luka himself, but for for the Lakers? And how they plan to approach the future?  It's hard to argue that the Lakers haven't watched the best case scenario play out this offseason, insofar as Luka is concerned. New body, new contract (signed the first moment possible), recruiting efforts for the front office and a dominant perfor...

Slovenia is 1-2 in Eurobasket play, but Luka Dončić is 3-3. Meaning he's had three games, and all of them have been outstanding.  That trend continued over the weekend, as Slovenia lost against tourney favorite France and then registered its first win, coming against Belgium. Against the French, Luka nearly had a triple double, keeping the Slovenians in the game longer than many expected, then did...

Slovenia kicked off its Eurobasket competition against Poland—one of the host nations—Thursday. A tough draw for sure against a fired up local crowd. Many Lakers fans are undoubtedly pulling for Slovenia right now, because they're pulling for Luka Dončić...  ...but on the other hand, a lot of them are more pulling for Luka.  And man alive, did Luka come through. Dončić put up a gaudy numbers even...

He's signed the contract. He's not going anywhere anytime soon. But the Lakers certainly aren't resting on their laurels.  As Slovenia prepares to start Eurobasket play Thursday afternoon against Poland, the Lakers brass, starting with Jeanie Buss and Rob Pelinka, stopped by practice to show support. They took photos. Pelinka released a statement, making it very clear how much the organization sup...

One good way to measure how confident the NBA pundit class is in the Lakers is to look at offseason predictions around things like awards.  And by that standard, the Lakers are doing ok. Luka Dončić finished second behind Nikola Jokic (who is pretty good!) in a preseason MVP handicapping, as judged by a panel of ESPN experts. For that to happen, first and foremost Luka needs to put up big numbers,...

For gamers, at least, it's a big day -- when the NBA 2K rankings start leaking out. (Big day for content creators, too, since it comes in the dog days of August.)  So were the Game Gods appropriately respectful to the Lakers?  Broadly, yes. Luka Dončić and LeBron James are among the league's top 10 (virtual) players. Austin Reaves was in the top 50. So basically these rankings pretty closely mirro...

Apparently, the Golden State Warriors are not entirely out of the LeBron James business.  Jake Fischer, who works for the outstanding Stein Line Substack, noted over the weekend how the interest in LeBron James from the Golden State Warriors—which was certainly has been a low hum in the NBA discourse for a long time, getting louder periodically—hasn't gone away. Golden State will apparently be kic...

The Lakers are, barring something unexpected, considered to be set for training camp, in terms of the roster.  But that said, is there the potential for anything unexpected?  Sacramento is trying desperately to unload Malik Monk (a former fave of Lakers fans, if only for a short time) so they can pick up Russell Westbrook. (That's an odd choice, we think, but a bigger question for Matt George at L...

The Lakers are in an interesting spot. On the one hand, they were dumped rather unceremoniously from the playoffs by the Timberwolves last spring. The perception, at least in some circles, is that they didn't make any big swings in the offseason. Nothing glamorous, managing only to acquire a couple of distressed assets (Deandre Ayton and Marcus Smart) while a big piece (Dorian Finney-Smith) went t...

Everyone can exhale.  After last weekend's injury scare for Luka Donćić, he was indeed back in action on Tuesday in Slovenia's Eurobasket prep exhibition against Great Britain. Just being healthy enough to play was encouraging (yes, it was reported that he was fine, but people want to see the evidence) but it was even better to see Luka dominate. In just over 28 minutes of play, he had 28 points (...

As promising as the pairing of Luka Dončić with LeBron James and Austin Reaves seemed following last winter's trade, the Lakers never really managed to find a great rhythm, or post the type of production folks expected. One example of that? The lack of production in the pick and roll, especially with Luka and LeBron in the action. According to ESPN, the Lakers only had the two of them as the pairi...

The Lakers got their first big scare of the offseason, when Luka Dončić had to leave this weekend's game for Slovenia against Latvia (after lighting up the Latvians in the first half). It made for some scary Tweets, but in the end, turned out (we think) to be ok. Dončić reportedly wanted to go back into the game and was held back. He's reportedly already practicing again, and isn't expected to mis...

It's not exactly the summer equivalent of Christmas Day -- that's the start of free agency -- but without question Schedule Drop Day is always a big one in NBA circles. Who's on TV the most? Where are the big matchups? How many back-to-backs? Where are the big rivalry games?  Thursday, we started to get those answers, as the NBA (after leaking some of the big event day games) finally put out the w...

The Lakers made some news this week, hiring Jeremy Holsopple to be their next strength and conditioning guru. Holsopple, who worked in Dallas for a long time (stretching across the Dirk Nowitzki and Luka Dončić eras), is well-regarded in league circles, and just as importantly, has a great relationship with Luka.  That seems to play into why Holsopple was let go by the Mavs.  But should Lakers fan...

The Lakers have had a tremendous amount of turnover in their strength/training/sports medicine departments over the last decade. And once again, they have a new man in charge.  This time, though, it's a bigger deal than normal because 1) the hire—Jeremy Holsopple—is getting excellent reviews from smart people who know about this stuff around the league, and 2) because Holsopple was once a critical...

Monday, we talked about the challenges Dalton Knecht faced in his rookie season with the Lakers. How much were those challenges responsible for the inconsistencies in his play? How much of it is related to gaps in his skill set or hoops IQ (based on struggles to learn the proper reads on both sides of the ball)?  And did the Lakers potentially get a little unlucky that Knecht fell into their laps,...

We're still weeks away from the start of the 2025-2026 NBA season, but at least now we know when it starts, and how it will begin for the Lakers.  No surprise, the purple and gold are on for the league's opening night, October 21st, at home against the Warriors. Adam Silver knows he only has so many opportunities remaining for a LeBron James vs. Steph Curry tilt, and he's making sure the league ge...

It's summertime, which makes it Rankin' Seazin! And here at the Locked On Network, we're celebrating big. The NBA channel will soon be rolling out its Top 100.  So where does Luka Dončić rank on the list? What about LeBron James? Austin Reaves? Do any other Lakers crack the top 100 players in the league? And more importantly, what does it mean to have guys on the list? Is there a big difference be...

The Lakers have a lot of questions in front of them, now that Luka Dončić has signed his extension with the team.  Most of them revolve around how best to build around the new superstar, and fundamental to that question is the future of Austin Reaves. It is widely assumed that next summer Reaves will attract a contract worth north of $30 million annually. Possibly around $35, if he has another sea...