The Lakers released their 2026-27 preseason schedule on Tuesday, laying out a five-game exhibition slate that opens Monday, Oct. 5 in Sacramento and wraps Friday, Oct. 16 at home against the Denver Nuggets.
The marquee date is Tuesday, Oct. 13, when the Lakers meet the Golden State Warriors at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas for the lone game outside California.
For a franchise that spent July remaking nearly its entire rotation, the announcement doubles as a countdown. These five games represent the only live-fire reps this group gets before the results start counting, and the schedule’s structure — compact, local and front-loaded — says something about how the organization plans to use them.
The full 2026-27 Lakers preseason schedule
- Monday, Oct. 5 — at Sacramento Kings, Golden 1 Center
- Tuesday, Oct. 6 — at Golden State Warriors, Chase Center
- Thursday, Oct. 8 — vs. Sacramento Kings, Crypto.com Arena
- Tuesday, Oct. 13 — vs. Golden State Warriors, T-Mobile Arena (Las Vegas)
- Friday, Oct. 16 — vs. Denver Nuggets, Crypto.com Arena
The slate leans heavily on two divisional partners, with the Kings and Warriors each appearing twice before Denver arrives for the finale. Three of the five games come away from Crypto.com Arena, though “away” is doing light work here given the geography involved.
A back-to-back to open and almost no travel
The most unusual feature of the schedule is right at the top. The Lakers open with games on consecutive nights — Sacramento on Monday, San Francisco on Tuesday — which means the very first 48 hours of exhibition play arrive as a back-to-back.
In practice, that almost certainly points to split squads and carefully rationed minutes, with the regulars likely taking one night and the roster’s younger tier absorbing the other. It is a structure that prioritizes evaluation reps over cohesion, at least out of the gate.
The other defining feature is how little the team will move. The schedule includes no Palm Springs stop this year and just one game out of state — the Vegas date with Golden State.
After several Octobers that scattered exhibition games across the region, this is about as travel-light as an NBA preseason gets, and for a roster that needs every available practice hour, staying close to the facility is a defensible trade.
Five games to sort out a brand-new rotation
The schedule matters more than usual because of who will be playing on it. The Lakers enter October with a rotation that barely resembles last season’s, after an offseason that added Walker Kessler, Quentin Grimes, Sandro Mamukelashvili, Collin Sexton and Matisse Thybulle around Luka Doncic.
The full rebuilt roster gives head coach JJ Redick, now entering his third season, more new pieces than holdovers, and five exhibitions is not a lot of runway to settle a starting group, a closing group and a bench hierarchy all at once.
That squeeze is why the projected starting five and depth chart will be worth revisiting after every one of these games. Questions that normally get answered quietly in camp — who backs up Kessler, how the wing minutes divide, where Sexton’s ball-handling load lands — will be answered in public, in October, against two teams the Lakers will see four times apiece once the games count.
The developmental tier has its own stakes. The two-way group was reshuffled as recently as Tuesday, when the Lakers waived Peter Suder to finalize Arthur Kaluma’s two-way deal, and October is where those contracts get justified.
Kaluma, Chris Manon and AK Okereke will be fighting for regular-season trust, while first-round pick Cameron Carr and second-year forward Adou Thiero — the twin success stories of the summer league run — get their first minutes against NBA veterans rather than July rosters. For that entire group, the Oct. 5-6 back-to-back is less a scheduling quirk than an opportunity, because somebody has to play those minutes.
Tickets and how to watch
Tickets for the Las Vegas game against the Warriors go on sale Thursday, July 24, with tickets for the two home dates at Crypto.com Arena following in August. Every preseason game will air on Spectrum SportsNet, with radio coverage on ESPN LA 710 AM and Spanish-language broadcasts on KFWB 980 AM.
The regular-season schedule typically arrives in mid-August, at which point the full shape of the season comes into view. Until then, this is the map: five games, 12 days, three familiar opponents and one very unfamiliar roster.
October will not answer everything about this team, but with this little exhibition runway, it will have to answer more than usual.
