Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers

The NBA put out its long-awaited rules designed to curb tanking through lottery reform. The rules are a little complicated, and include provisions that not only flatten lottery odds -- out is the old system of tons of ping pong ball combos, in is the 3-2-1 system where teams get (wait for it) three, two or one ball each. Next year, though, we'll see new wrinkles like a "relegation zone," where the...

The Lakers have a lot of work to do this offseason, and have neither a great range of tools at their disposal, nor a great group of free agents who might be available to sign. And after being promised some significant action this offseason, many fans are noticing the potential issues, here. And that leads to our mailbag questions for today from @socioisbackapparently661 and @ScottSemple-vr2qo, bot...

The Lakers have to figure out how to resign their own key free agents, starting with Austin Reaves and (probably) LeBron James, and moving on to (probably) Rui Hachimura. But to improve the team, they're going to have to find some new guys, too. They can't just run it back and expect a different result. (Especially after selling the Bold Summer of '26 to fans for a while.) So at the least, the Lak...

On Tuesday, JJ Redick got three third place votes for NBA Coach of the Year, which is actually a couple fewer than he received in his first season as Lakers head coach. So two years as a coach in the league, two years finishing on the COY table. Pretty good!  So two big questions: Did JJ (and by proxy the Lakers) get the credit he deserved? And how did Redick improve from Year 1 to Year 2?  Lakers...

While the Lakers are still probably the most likely landing spot for LeBron James this summer, there are other franchises that certainly make sense as a destination, even if the fit isn't perfect. Golden State to play with Steph and Draymond, and have that experience. New York, because he's LeBron and it's New York, a basketball institution he's always admired. The Clippers, if he wanted a change...

The Lakers under new owner Mark Walter have promised to make significant additions to the organization, especially on the basketball operations side. That process started over the weekend with the Lakers adding former Pelicans executive Rohan Ramadas as an assistant general manager. He served as a VP of strategy and operations for New Orleans and will likely serve a similar role here, working to r...

It's a thin free agent year, this everyone knows. And unfortunately, two of the best among current free agents are their own (LeBron James, Rui Hachimura. There are some other names floating around out there, but while the narrative sometimes makes it sound like they've got cap space to spare, the reality of its LA actually has a relatively narrow window into which they can fit in potential free a...

LeBon James spoke with Steve Nash for ther Mind the Game podcast on Thursday, and needelss to say it was of great interest to the Lakers and their fans.  A couple things grew more clear over the course of the conversation. First, LeBron will not be rushed into any decisions about his future. He's currently getting ready for a family vacation, and said he's not going to start thinking about next ye...

The Western Conference Finals are, understandably, creating angst around the league, including among Lakers fans. Why? Because pretty much everyone is watching the Thunder and Spurs thinking, "We're not nearly as good as they are."  And considering both teams might not be done improving (especially San Antonio) the existential crisis is warranted.  Law Murray at The Athletic has been publishing hi...

Perhaps the most significant difference between this offseason and the last half-decade of offseason isn't the pressure to improve -- although that's a pretty big factor -- it's the change in ownership.  It's the first where a member of the Buss family isn't a primary owner of the team. And under Mark Walter, there is an expectation that the way the team operates is going to change significantly....

Deandre Ayton and Jaxson Hayes were, in the aggregate, more good than bad over the course of this season, at least relative to what they were being paid. But unless you think the Ayton the Lakers got over the last eight weeks of the season will be the Ayton they get over 82 games next year -- which would definitely be a nice bargain for eight mil or so -- the Lakers definitely could use an upgrade...

The arc of LeBron James with the Lakers over the last nine months or so has been quite interesting, from the moment he picked up his option but neither side seemed (at least for the public) to be interested in a contract extension.  There were comments from Rich Paul about monitoring the situation, and then about the supporting cast, and (relative to his standard) poor play from James when he came...

The Lakers -- and every other team in the West and the NBA more broadly -- have a problem. As we all saw in Game 1 of the Conference Finals Monday between the Thunder and San Antonio, these are two teams that are not only incredibly good right now, they're poised to stay incredibly good for a while. Or even continue to get better. (Wemby, Steph Castle and Dylan Harper are 22, 21 and 20, respective...

So Dillon Brooks -- yes, that Dillon Brooks -- put Lakers forward Jarred Vanderbilt into the news cycle when he volunteered Vando when asked by a Twitch streamer named Ray who Brooks thought was the dumbest player in the league.  Brooks also said -- because hey, you don't want to be mean, right? -- that he feels Vanderbilt also has untapped potential.  The latter question is particularly important...

Luka Dončić finished fourth in Sunday's release of MVP voting. This was always the most likely outcome, once Luka was hurt before the end of the year, and the Lakers lost (for all intents and purposes) a real shot at the third seed in the West. But within that voting, there were some things that will almost surely stick in the craw of many Lakers fans -- namely that Luka, the leading scorer in the...

Well, you know summer is here because reports of the Lakers and Giannis are already out there.  A report from Dan Woike and Sam Amick at The Athletic noted that the Lakers are expected to be part of potential trade talks for Giannis that everyone expects will begin to percolate as soon as the playoffs are over. Interestingly, the report came in the context of noting that Luka Doncic, who the Laker...

It's a reflection of LeBron's still-strong influence on the league that four days into the offseason for the Lakers, the "will James return" discourse is already in overrdrive. And it reflects the significant pressure under which Rob Pelinka will operate this summer, because it's an important part of an offeason that internally and externally is expected to be one of significant progress.  Maybe n...

From the moment he returned to the lineup in this year's playoffs, Austin Reaves was squarely in the spotlight.  The results were a mixed bag. Reaves struggled mightily with his perimeter shot against both Houston and the Thunder, and was turnover prone against both teams as well. On the other hand, Reaves was freely able to get into the paint against both of these defenses, which are two of the b...

The Lakers are at yet another crossroads with LeBron James, and even as it seems like the interests of the franchise and the interests of its former franchise player are more aligned than they were six months ago, there's still the lingering question of whether James returns to the team next year.  Those questions got a little question-ier when ESPN's Dave McMenamin -- certainly very well plugged...

Luka Dončić announced earlier this week on his IG page that he won't be playing for Slovenia this summer. He cited his ongoing custody dispute and the demands travel would bring as the reason, as opposed to his injured hamstring, but for the Lakers the effect is the same. It means that Luka will have a full summer to heal, train and essentially repeat last year's Summer of Luka. They'd never ask h...

Tuesday in El Segundo, the Lakers braintrust laid out some of the big organizational priorities going forward. Things like building meaningful depth - the kind that's modeled after teams like OKC and San Antonio, even if that standard isn't immediately reachable. They want to improve player development. And they want the organizational infrastructure to improve.  Now, the latter has a lot to do wi...

JJ Redick and Rob Pelinka met the media Tuesday in El Segundo following Monday's season-ending loss to the Thunder at Crypto.com. The disappointment was muted by, frankly, the inevitability of the result once Luka Dončić got hurt, and because of that it was easier to focus on the successful nature of the season. 53 wins, above expectations for most projections, and what would almost certainly have...

The final score was a lot more respectable, but the end result was the same. A fourth straight loss for the Lakers to the Oklahoma City Thunder, completing the 4-0 sweep and ending the 2025-26 season.  Without Luka Dončić, the Lakers really didn't have much of a shot at beating OKC over the course of the series. The hope was to try and steal a game or two and see what might happen. The Thunder nev...

Insofar as the series against Oklahoma City is concerned, there's not been all that much to get excited about. Even when the Lakers manage to play well, they're still getting overrun by a deeper, more talented Thunder squad.  One exception has been the play of Adou Thiero. It's not that he's put up huge numbers in relatively short minutes—though eight rebounds in 13 minutes of Game 2 action certai...

It's not the effort, it's (at least part) the execution (though not in everything) and the opponent that explains why the Lakers are down 3-0 heading into Monday's Game 4 with the Thunder.  No NBA team has come back from a 3-0 deficit, and it feels... unlikely... that the Lakers will be the first. Game 4 becomes a referendum on professional pride. How hard do the Lakers try to cut? How effectively...