LOS ANGELES \u2014 After nearly two weeks of exhibition games, the Lakers were finally able to have their long-awaited \u201cdress rehearsal\u201d with Friday night\u2019s preseason finale against the Sacramento Kings at Crypto.com Arena.<\/p>\n
And it also offered insight into their expected started lineup when they host the Golden State Warriors in their regular-season opener on Tuesday night at Crypto.com Arena.<\/p>\n
The Lakers started Luka Doncic, Gabe Vincent, Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura and Deandre Ayton against the Kings \u2013 the first time they had what will be their full, healthy rotation of players when the regular season starts in light of LeBron James being sidelined to start the season because of the sciatica (nerve pain\/injury) on his right side.<\/p>\n
Rookie forward Adou Thiero will also be sidelined to start the season as his left knee swelling improves. Coach JJ Redick didn\u2019t have an update on the status of second-year guard Bronny James, who suffered a sprained ankle during the second half of Tuesday\u2019s preseason loss to the Phoenix Suns.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important to get used to the normal process of a game day, going through shootaround, our film and shootaround, our pregame presentation, all that stuff is really important,\u201d Redick said pregame. \u201cAnd then just having your rotation guys play together for longer stretches. Again, we say this all the time: it doesn\u2019t really matter who we play, it\u2019s just us, right? We\u2019re working on us.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Doncic, Reaves and Ayton had been viewed as locks for the first unit, and Hachimura was an incumbent starter from last year\u2019s team and finished the 2023-24 season as a starter too, the inclusion of Vincent in the first unit in light of James\u2019 absence was the biggest surprise.<\/p>\n
But Vincent, who is entering his third season with the Lakers, has had a strong preseason, including scoring 18 points in the opening 4\u00bd minutes of Wednesday\u2019s loss to the Dallas Mavericks in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
Vincent entered Friday averaging 17 points (50% shooting from 3-point range on 7.3 attempts per game) and 3.3 assists in the three preseason games he played in.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s steady \u2013 there\u2019s a steadiness that is required to stay sane,\u201d Redick said before Friday\u2019s game regarding what younger teammates can learn from Vincent. \u201cThere\u2019s a steadiness that\u2019s required to gain the respect of your teammates and coaches. There\u2019s a steadiness that\u2019s evident that can literally infiltrate the culture of the team. And Gabe is part of that. He\u2019s had an unbelievable preseason. He\u2019s done a phenomenal job.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I think, too, his professionalism. You watch that guy do a rep in practice, a rep in an individual workout, everything is just top notch. He\u2019s growing as a leader, and I\u2019m really excited that there\u2019s a comfort level now in year three, a comfort level coming off last year where he got to play for most of the season. You\u2019re kind of seeing that manifest in the preseason.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jarred Vanderbilt and Maxi Kleber were available on Friday after dealing with quadriceps ailments.<\/p>\n
Kleber had been sidelined for nearly the entire training camp and preseason because of the injury, telling reporters on Friday that he was cleared. The 6-foot-10 German big man, who the Lakers acquired as part of the trade for Doncic last February, was sidelined for three months last season because of a fractured right foot.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was very frustrated,\u201d Kleber said. \u201cI put in a lot of work to have something happen like that. But you can\u2019t always control everything. All I can do is put in the work and do my best. The same goes for coming back rehabbing and getting back into game shape.\u201d<\/p>\n
More to come on this story.<\/p>\n
Originally Published: October 17, 2025 at 9:10 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 After nearly two weeks of exhibition games, the Lakers were finally able to have their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[6306,355,99],"class_list":["post-233094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-lakers","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}