The Los Angeles Lakers‘ first preseason game of the 2025-26 campaign is in the books, and it resulted in a 103-81 loss to the Phoenix Suns. Luka Doncic, LeBron James, Marcus Smart, Maxi Kleber and rookie forward Adou Thiero were ruled out prior to the opening tip, so perhaps the team could get a bit of a pass for its poor performance.

Still, there are a few things one can take away from this game. The Lakers are nowhere near ready for the start of the regular season, and it is therefore a good thing they will have five more exhibition games left before the contests start to count in the standings.

Advertisement

The Lakers’ offense needs lots of work

This is Captain Obvious territory, but the Lakers’ offense looked extremely ugly on Friday. They shot 31.1% from the field and went 6-of-35 from 3-point range while committing 22 turnovers. While they made a very solid 29 of 37 free throw attempts, they had only six fast-break points, while Phoenix mustered 19 points in transition.

Los Angeles had lots of trouble running basic actions in its halfcourt offense. It often looked to get new center Deandre Ayton involved in the low post, but Phoenix fronted him while pressuring any attempts to make a post entry pass to him. L.A.’s players also had lots of trouble generating offense off the dribble, as they committed many turnovers simply by losing the basketball off the dribble.

Ayton was active defensively

Ayton’s points will come as long as L.A. runs its offense well. He has a deep bag of offensive skills, but the question with him has always been his defensive impact and motor.

Advertisement

On Friday, he blocked two shots and showed decent hustle overall defensively and on the boards. He played 18 minutes and grabbed eight rebounds, and he should help the Lakers in the rebounding department, which has been a big weakness for them over the last couple of years.

Austin Reaves is already almost in regular-season form

One Lakers player who did do well on Friday was Austin Reaves. He worked very hard during training camp this week and led the team with 20 points on 6-of-11 field-goal shooting while also making all seven of his free throw attempts.

Everyone knows this will be a big season for Reaves, as he’s expected to opt out of his contract and become a free agent next summer. It will be hard for him to put up much more than the 20.2 points and 5.8 assists a game he had last season, but staying at approximately that level of production while increasing his efficiency a bit would earn him a big contract in 2026.

This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Three takeaways from Friday’s Lakers preseason game