The Lakers Are About to Make NBA History, and Not the Kind Anyone Wants

SWN Analysis · September 8, 2026

When Los Angeles opens the 2026-27 season, it will be the first team in NBA history to have none of its top five players in minutes played from the previous postseason return for the following season.

That’s ESPN’s Dave McMenamin, and it isn’t a rhetorical flourish. LeBron James, Rui Hachimura, Deandre Ayton, Marcus Smart, Jaxson Hayes and Luke Kennard are all gone. Eleven new players are in.

This is the first Lakers season without LeBron since 2018-19, closing an eight-year run that produced the 2020 championship. He informed the team on June 30 that he intended to sign elsewhere, and ultimately joined the 76ers.

Oh, and the franchise was sold for the second time in ten months, at a reported $12.5 billion valuation.

The team is Luka Doncic’s now

That’s the actual headline, and it’s the first time it’s been unambiguously true.

Doncic led the NBA in scoring last season. For years the Lakers roster was constructed around whatever LeBron needed in a given season; the organization has now committed to building around Doncic and Austin Reaves as a two-man engine.

Reaves re-signed long-term on a deal reported at $185 million. The pair posted a net rating of 8.9 together last season, which is genuine on-court chemistry rather than a small-sample artifact.

For Doncic personally, the offseason was a win: the Reaves partnership intact, no more balancing superstar responsibilities with James, and a center who fits how he plays.

The center problem is finally solved

Walker Kessler arrived from Utah in a sign-and-trade valued at four years and $130 million, and he’s the rolling, rim-protecting big Doncic has been asking for. He averaged 11.1 points, 12.2 rebounds and 2.4 blocks per game.

Quentin Grimes rounds out the projected starting group as a defensive-minded wing who can space the floor and handle initiating reps when Doncic or Reaves sits — exactly the profile the front office spent July collecting.

That’s four starters. The fifth spot is the open argument, with Jake LaRavia carrying the incumbent’s case: 43 starts last season, all 82 games played, second on the roster in total minutes.

The bench was the real problem, and it got addressed

Here’s the number that explains the offseason. Last season’s Lakers starters produced +4.6 Net Points per game, ninth-best in the league. The bench produced -2.9, tenth-worst — the biggest drop-off between starters and reserves in the NBA.

Collin Sexton on a two-year deal gives the second unit a downhill scorer who can carry minutes when Doncic sits. Kevon Looney signed for one year at $3.9 million as Kessler’s backup. Sandro Mamukelashvili, Matisse Thybulle, Ziaire Williams and Jaden Hardy — who arrived from Washington in the Ayton trade and has history with Doncic from Dallas — fill out the depth.

The bench improved. The starting group got weaker with LeBron gone. As one analyst put it, at least the drop-off won’t be so severe.

Nobody outside the building is impressed

The projections are consistent and unflattering. ESPN’s post-free-agency power rankings placed the Lakers 11th. Record forecasts cluster around 45-37 to 46-36 — the play-in group rather than the contender tier.

The critiques have been pointed: Los Angeles committed significant money to players who aren’t proven starters, and gave up cap space and assets to retain Reaves and acquire Kessler at prices that may exceed their value.

The counter-argument is the one Doncic made in Dallas in 2024, when he took a roster nobody rated to the NBA Finals.

The schedule doesn’t help

Fifteen back-to-back sets. A seven-game road trip from Jan. 28 through Feb. 8. Five games in seven days from March 11-17.

For a team with eleven new players learning JJ Redick’s system, those condensed stretches are where chemistry problems become losses — and where Redick will have to manage minutes and rest players through minor injuries rather than pushing through.

What success looks like

The honest bar is the playoffs, not a title. The Lakers were a play-in team three times with LeBron; doing better than that without him would be a real achievement in a loaded Western Conference.

The markers:
– How fast the fit comes. Eleven new players is a training-camp problem that can become a December problem.
– The fifth starter. LaRavia or a perimeter defender, and the answer shapes the whole rotation.
– Two roster holes. A backup big and a wing defender are still unfilled; the Lakers’ brand has always attracted veterans on minimum deals, which is the likeliest path.
– Doncic’s health. He missed time in last spring’s second-round loss to Oklahoma City, and there is no version of this season that survives without him.

For the first time in nearly a decade, the Lakers have a coherent identity built around one player rather than a roster assembled to accommodate another. Whether that’s better is the question the whole league is watching.

LA Sports Wire covers Lakers news, schedules and game coverage all season. See the Lakers schedule for tip-off times and broadcast info.