The Los Angeles Lakers fell short in their season opener, losing 119-109 to the Golden State Warriors Tuesday night. The 2025-26 season marks a new era in Hollywood with the franchise shifting its focus to its newest generational star, Luka Doncic.
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The campaign marks Doncic’s first full year in the purple and gold, but the Lakers already had problems to solve before the season even began.
LeBron James is set to miss a significant amount of time due to sciatica on his right side, and began the year sitting at the end of the bench in street clothes. James will reportedly be out until mid-November with the injury.
That leaves Doncic without his fellow superstar teammate, and James’ absence gives the Lakers an early test in this next chapter for the storied organization.
On Tuesday night, the Lakers had a glaring issue on the defensive end, and it proved to be their demise in a season opening loss to the Warriors.
Ahead of the season opener, Lakers head coach JJ Redick put an emphasis on the team’s defensive cohesiveness and went as far as to say the team could not be successful without said characteristic. Their shortcomings in the season opener are now raising a major red flag, as the Lakers did not look like a legitimate title contender Tuesday night.
Redick called out his team for their poor performance to kick off the season, and revealed the Lakers have discussed the topic heavily in the film room.
“We did a poor job of locating the lasers in transition, which was a point of emphasis of our defense,” Redick said. “Buddy Hield got two [3-pointers] off in the second half. Steph got one right in front of our bench in the first half. That was literally the second priority of the game, was locating those guys in transition. So, clean that up and again talk through that. … All of us kind of talked about that in film.”
The Lakers have a chance to redeem themselves Friday night when they host the Minnesota Timberwolves.
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