The waiting is over, and so is an era. LeBron James is officially a member of the Philadelphia 76ers after agreeing to a two-year, $8 million contract that includes a player option, and the departure the Lakers had been bracing for all month now has a jersey attached to it.
The exits are not finished, either. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, a starter on the Lakers’ 2020 championship team, is negotiating a buyout with the Memphis Grizzlies and intends to rejoin James in Philadelphia, according to NBA insider Chris Haynes. Watching two members of that title core reassemble in the Eastern Conference stings, but it also clarifies things in Los Angeles, where the only question that matters now is a forward-looking one: who actually starts for this team in October?
Four spots are already settled
Whatever suspense remains in the Lakers’ lineup, it does not involve the first four names on the card. Luka Doncic runs the show, Austin Reaves starts beside him after re-signing this summer, and the two of them give head coach JJ Redick the most productive returning backcourt in the Western Conference outside of Oklahoma City.
Quentin Grimes, brought over in free agency, profiles as the starting wing. He can defend across the perimeter, space the floor off the ball and take initiating reps when Doncic or Reaves sits, which is precisely the profile the front office spent July collecting.
Walker Kessler, acquired in the sign-and-trade that reshaped the Lakers’ cap sheet, anchors the middle as the rolling, rim-protecting center Doncic asked for.
That is four locks. The fifth spot is where the actual basketball argument lives.
The 5th spot is a real competition
Jake LaRavia enters camp with the incumbent’s case. He started 43 games for the Lakers last season, sixth most on the roster, while appearing in all 82 and finishing second on the team in total minutes.
Redick trusted him in nearly every configuration the injury-scrambled season produced, and continuity carries weight when four other starters are locked in.
The complication is that the front office spent the past two weeks signing his competition. Matisse Thybulle and Ziaire Williams were both added specifically to address the Lakers’ perimeter defense, and point-of-attack defense is the one job description Doncic and Reaves cannot fill for each other.
If Redick decides the starting unit needs a designated stopper more than it needs LaRavia’s connective offense, Thybulle is the most decorated defender on the roster and Williams offers a longer, more switchable version of the same idea.
Jarred Vanderbilt lurks as the veteran alternative, though his fit next to a non-shooting-dependent center like Kessler is cleaner on defense than offense. The honest answer is that this is a genuine training camp battle, and the Lakers built it that way on purpose.
There is also a bigger option available: Sandro Mamukelashvili can play the 4 next to Kessler as a shooting-capable frontcourt partner, a look Redick can reach for against bulkier Western frontlines.
The offseason moves suggest the front office sees the open job as a perimeter-defense hire rather than a size upgrade, though, which is why Mamukelashvili projects more naturally as the first big off the bench than as the fifth starter.
What Las Vegas revealed
The Lakers held a veteran minicamp in Las Vegas last week, and the early internal read on the new-look roster was encouraging. The mood coming out of the sessions was optimistic despite the group’s relative inexperience, with the driving reason being the sheer number of Lakers who can now “punish a defender off the dribble.”
“And while the players they replaced them with are universally less experienced with almost no postseason production, word out of the team’s veteran minicamp this past week in Las Vegas was optimistic,” wrote Dan Woike. “The biggest reason was the offensive upside, the number of players on the team who can punish a defender off the dribble having multiplied this summer.”
That surplus is the real difference between this roster and the one that lost LeBron. Collin Sexton gives the second unit a downhill scorer who has spent his career creating his own offense.
Grimes handled lead-guard duties in Philadelphia whenever Tyrese Maxey rested. Mamukelashvili adds a skilled, shooting-capable big who can play next to Kessler or behind him, and Jaden Hardy, the young guard acquired in the Deandre Ayton trade, is a natural ball-handler if he claims a roster spot.
The Lakers lost the greatest playmaking forward in league history, and their response was to distribute his job across half a dozen contracts rather than chase one replacement.
The roster math still has to resolve
None of this is final, because the arithmetic does not currently work. The Thybulle signing pushed the Lakers to 16 players on standard deals with only 15 regular-season spots available, which means at least one more move is coming before opening night.
The franchise is also hard-capped at the first apron as a consequence of the Kessler sign-and-trade, so the remaining tools are trades, waivers and minimum deals rather than anything more creative.
The crunch touches the back of the roster more than the front. Rookie wing Cameron Carr and second-year forward Adou Thiero showed enough in Las Vegas to complicate any easy cut, and Bronny James remains under contract with his deal fully guaranteed for the coming season.
How Rob Pelinka trims to 15 will say a lot about which of the young players the organization actually believes in.
The Kuminga variable
The one move that could still reorder the entire forward rotation is the one the Lakers have chased longest. Los Angeles has pursued Jonathan Kuminga for weeks, but the landscape shifted within hours of James choosing Philadelphia: the Cavaliers and the 23-year-old forward have mutual interest, league sources told The Athletic’s Joe Vardon, and Atlanta has reportedly been underwhelmed by what the Lakers can offer in a sign-and-trade compared to Cleveland’s available pieces.
Kuminga is seeking a deal in the range of $20 million to $23 million annually, a number the Lakers’ apron math makes difficult. If Kuminga lands in Los Angeles anyway, he immediately becomes the favorite for the open forward spot and the depth chart reshuffles behind him.
If he goes to Cleveland or back to Atlanta, the Lakers’ patience will have preserved their flexibility, and the LaRavia-Thybulle competition decides itself on the practice floor.
Either way, the shape of the thing is finally visible. For eight years, the Lakers’ starting lineup began with LeBron James and worked outward.
It now begins with Luka Doncic, and for the first time since 2018, the most interesting question in El Segundo is not about a superstar’s future but about which role player earns the right to stand next to one.
