The Lakers open their Las Vegas Summer League schedule Friday night against the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the matchup carries a little more weight than a July exhibition usually does.
The last time these franchises met, in May, the Thunder ended the Lakers’ season in the second round of the playoffs. The roster that takes the floor at the Thomas & Mack Center will share almost nothing with the one that walked off that night — which, as it turns out, is exactly what the team’s young players are being asked about this week.
The more immediate news out of Thursday’s practice is that both of the Lakers’ summer headliners will play. Coach Ty Abbott said first-round pick Cameron Carr and second-year forward Adou Thiero are on track for Friday’s game after practicing Thursday.
Both headliners cleared
Carr was limited in the final game of the California Classic by a toe issue, and he brushed it off Thursday in Las Vegas.
“It just looked a little weird,” Carr said of the toe.
Abbott confirmed both Carr and Thiero — the latter dealing with a wrist issue — will play Friday, though the staff has not decided how much either will play across the full Vegas slate.
That workload question is the one worth watching. The Lakers have four scheduled games in Las Vegas, and teams routinely shut down their best summer players once they have seen enough. Whatever run Carr gets Friday night may be among the longest looks the Lakers give him before training camp.
What Carr showed in the Classic
The No. 24 overall pick out of Baylor spent the California Classic making the case that he was drafted a round too late. Carr scored 19 points in his debut against Golden State, then poured in 26 in a double-overtime win over Miami two days later before the toe cut into his third game.
His teammates have noticed. Second-year guard Chris Manon told reporters Thursday that people still have not seen the whole picture.
“I feel like we haven’t really seen his full athletic ability yet,” Manon said. “He’s special. Special for sure. … Once his body fills out…he’ll be a problem.”
The scouting profile backs the teammate hype. At Baylor, Carr averaged 18.9 points, 5.8 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game on 49.4 percent shooting while leading the team in blocks, per his NBA.com draft profile, which projects him as a 3-and-D wing with room to grow into more once his frame and handle mature.
The same page carries a detail Lakers fans will appreciate: Carr’s father, Chris Sr., spent six seasons in the NBA and finished second in the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest — to a 18-year-old Kobe Bryant. Twenty-nine years later, his son is trying to earn a rotation spot in the building Bryant made famous.
Thiero and a roster that turned over completely
Thiero occupies a different spot on the same timeline. The second-year forward missed Summer League entirely last July while recovering from a knee injury, so this is, in effect, his first real summer showcase — and he is the only player in Vegas who was on the Lakers’ roster last season with a plausible path to this season’s rotation.
He was asked Thursday about the fact that all five starters from the Lakers’ playoff opener in April are now gone from the team. His answer was the right one for a 21-year-old trying to make a team.
“It’s going to be different but that’s not what I’m really focused on right now,” Thiero said. “This is the team I’m with right now, so I’m focused on getting better, getting better with this group of guys.”
Thiero also admitted he pressed early in the Classic, saying he was “eager to play” in the first two games and had to slow his game down. That candor is worth something. The Lakers do not need Thiero to be a star this month; they need him to look like an NBA rotation player, because the roster math above him has rarely been this open.
Why this Vegas trip matters more than most
Consider what the organization looks like from where Carr and Thiero sit. LeBron James left in free agency. Rui Hachimura signed across the hall with the Clippers. Deandre Ayton was traded to Washington.
The rebuilt roster around Luka Doncic — Walker Kessler, Quentin Grimes, Collin Sexton, Sandro Mamukelashvili, Kevon Looney — was assembled almost entirely in the last nine days, and the front office is still chasing a starting wing.
A team that just replaced most of its rotation has minutes to give, and it has them at exactly the positions Carr and Thiero play. That is not a promise either player will crack JJ Redick’s rotation in October.
It is a reason the next four games are a real audition rather than a July formality, and the Lakers are treating the trip with corresponding seriousness — the team has taken over a Las Vegas ballroom for practices, complete with a new court design it is trying out.
Friday’s opponent sharpens the point. The Thunder ended the Lakers’ season two months ago, and their summer roster is stocked with the kind of young, athletic depth Oklahoma City seems to produce on a loop. For a Lakers front office trying to figure out which of its own young players belong, there are worse measuring sticks.
How to watch
The Lakers and Thunder tip off Friday, July 10 at 10 p.m. ET (7 p.m. PT) on Prime Video, per ESPN’s Summer League schedule, in the nightcap slot at the Thomas & Mack Center.
The rest of the Vegas slate comes fast: Dallas on Saturday night (10 p.m. ET, ESPN), the Clippers on Tuesday, July 14 (10 p.m. ET, Prime Video) and the Bulls on Thursday, July 16 (6 p.m. ET, Prime Video), with the possibility of playoff or consolation games after that.
If Carr keeps scoring the way he did in San Francisco, do not be surprised if the Lakers make the decision every contender-in-waiting eventually makes with a rookie who has proven his point: Sit him down and get him ready for the games that count.
