lebron james

Their face is gone, LeBron James getting kicked to a Philly curb.

Their voice is gone, longtime public address announcer Lawrence Tanter dying last month at age 76 after more than four decades of dulcet downtown tones.

A big piece of their heart is also gone, Jeanie Buss mired in an ugly court fight to maintain her last remaining sliver of influence in the wake of this summer’s sale to Bob Iger and Joshua Kushner.

Meet the 2026-27 Lakers, a team that will look different, sound different, feel different, play different and behave different from their recent predecessors in every way but one.

They’re still not winning a championship.

They’re still not getting to the conference finals.

Lakers guard Luka Doncic enters this season as the face of the franchise after LeBron James’ departure.

(Luke Hales / Getty Images)

They’re still destined to a sixth seed and a first-round knockout in the impossible West, a mediocre finish that is sure to convince new ownership to make massive changes — look out Rob Pelinka and JJ Redick! — and start all over again next season.

So call this a gap year.

They’ve graduated from LeBron, but they’re still not quite sure what they want to do with the rest of their life.

They’re planning on majoring in Luka Doncic, minoring in Austin Reaves and specializing in Walker Kessler, but there are flaws in all three, and the rest of the proposed curriculum is an unknown collection of ideas that have yet to be put together in a cogent package.

For now, the league’s biggest roster overhaul includes names that are just names, the likes of Quentin Grimes, Collin Sexton, Matisse Thybulle, Ziaire Williams, Sandro Mamukelashvili and Kevon Looney. Who knows where they will fit? Who knows what they can do?

Noticeably missing are the names Rui Hachimura, Luke Kennard and Marcus Smart, all decent contributors last season, and that’s too bad.

Then there’s the name Bronny James, whose future here took a nosedive when his pops moved to Philadelphia and he had a lousy training camp. Who knows how long Bronny will stick around, but at least the Lakers are out of the LeBron family drama business, which is good, because this team will create enough drama on its own.

First, there’s Doncic, and the risk in building around him, considering he’s missed an average of 20 games a season the last three years. He’s appeared in a total of five playoff games since leading the Dallas Mavericks to the Finals three years ago. He’s 27, but sometimes he trudges around the court like he’s 50.

Lakers guard Bronny James dribbles during a preseason game against the Kings at Crypto.com Arena on Oct. 8.

(Luke Hales / Getty Images)

Now that this is Doncic’s team, will he act like it?

Every centerpiece player in Laker history — from Mikan to West to Kareem to Magic to Kobe to Shaq to Pau to LeBron — has carried their group to a championship. They’ve not been considered a true Laker until they have done so. In the case of LeBron, one was not even enough.

Is Doncic prepared to shoulder this burden? He says yes. He says he’s done this before, although he’s never won an NBA title, so, um …

“It feels great,” he told reporters at media day last month. “Obviously, it’s a new challenge. I was in this position in my career a lot of times, so it’s not new to me. But I feel great. I feel excited, and like I said, I’m ready to go. It’s been a long time since I played basketball, so I’m ready.”

He got off to a good start this summer when he flew the team to his native Slovenia to spend a few days bonding. He is already acting like a captain. Now he needs to play every day like one.

“I see myself in this role, nothing new, but it’s very important,” Doncic said. “Everybody on the whole team, you know, look up to me, I have to look up to them. And it’s just, there should be many leaders, you know. You should be able to hold each other accountable.”

Lakers guard Austin Reaves dribbles past the Kings’ Nique Clifford during a preseason game at Crypto.com Arena on Oct. 8.

(Luke Hales / Getty Images)

Many leaders? Probably only two, Doncic and his newly minted $180-million running mate Reaves.

The Lakers were 30-11 when the two gunners were on the court last season, and no NBA duo averaged more points, but, again, this year is different.

Last year they both had LeBron as a safety net. This year, it’s all on them.

Just like Doncic, Reaves said he is ready to help guide his new teammates on this arduous journey.

“The expectation here of being a Laker is higher than it is anywhere in the world,” Reaves said. “The media presence, you know, every day something is going to come out about us, and just being able to know how to navigate that and help others navigate that is the main thing. One second we’re going to be the best team in the world. And the next you lose two in a row, you’re the worst team, you can’t figure it out. So, helping these guys understand that none of that really matters, it’s all about what goes on within these walls, is the main thing.”

Actually, for Reaves, the main thing is the postseason, where he has mightily struggled, even taking into account the slight guard usually enters each spring with all sorts of bumps and bruises. He’s been a lousy playoff shooter. He’s been a clumsy playoff playmaker.

But one of the greatest undrafted free agents in recent league history appreciates and embraces every chance to change the narrative, and he’ll have no greater chance than this season.

“You’re going to have failures within this long season,” he said. “But every single night you’re going to have an opportunity when you take the floor, especially for this organization, for this fan base to show the world what you’re capable of. So, you’re going to have every single opportunity to do good with the opportunities that you’re given.”

No Laker, it seems, will have a greater nightly opportunity to write his legacy than Kessler, who was acquired this summer from the Utah Jazz for the princely sum of two first-round picks and two first-round pick swaps.

He is being projected as a perfect lob and pick-and-roll partner for Doncic and a long-awaited rim protector, but let’s be real.

He played in five games last year and never started a full season in his four years in Utah and even for a perpetually tanking team, that’s not a big resume. What sort of NBA center he will be is anybody’s guess.

The Lakers are guessing huge, and at least he sounds like he’s ready for it.

Laker Walker Kessler fouls the Warriors’ Yaxel Lendeborg during a preseason game on Oct. 13 in Las Vegas, Nev.

(Ethan Miller / Getty Images)

“And as far as the belief that they’ve shown in me, I mean, it makes me excited for this year,” he said. “It makes me feel like I can run through the wall for this organization, this team, my teammates, so yeah, I’m just so excited.”

Good thing about that wall, because with this unsettled bunch, there will be plenty of them.

But, hey, at least one looming question has been answered. During media day, new power forward Mamukelashvili gracefully explained how to pronounce his last name.

“So, a lot of people think it’s hard, but I don’t think so,” he said. “It is Mamu-kela-shvili. So if you take like, I feel like, two letters at a time, and “shvili” at the end, it’s not that hard.”

If only the rest of this season would go so smooth.

The news conference Thursday began with Lakers president of operations Rob Pelinka saying he wanted to “express gratitude” to LeBron James for the eight years he spent playing for Los Angeles before departing to Philadelphia as a free agent over the summer.

It didn’t take long for Pelinka to pivot into Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves, and how they are now the leaders of the Lakers with James gone.

James informed the Lakers on June 30 that he had plans to play elsewhere, and thus began a new chapter for the Lakers. James, who signed with the 76ers, won an NBA championship with the Lakers in 2020. He led the Lakers to the Western Conference second round of the 2026 playoffs.

Over the course of his 23-year NBA career, James’ longest tenure had been with the Lakers.

And for that, Pelinka was thankful.

“I think before we get into the questions, it’s been a few weeks since I’ve last seen you guys. I thought it would be appropriate at the front to express gratitude for the LeBron era here,” Pelinka said. “Clearly, new team and new players, and that’s what we’re going to talk about today. But we as an organization are still grateful for the run that we had with him here. The Lakers have become — as they should — a perennial playoff team — won a championship, went to the Western Conference finals. It was a great era, and we’re grateful for it. I think it’s important to say that at the onset as we turn into a new chapter.”

Pelinka said he collaborated with Lakers coach JJ Redick to build a team around Doncic, using a three-pronged approach.

They wanted to re-sign Reaves, which the Lakers did at four years and $180 million, the largest contract ever for an undrafted player in NBA history.

They wanted to acquire a top-notch center, which the Lakers did by getting Walker Kessler from the Utah Jazz in a sign-and-trade deal. The Lakers sent two unprotected first-round picks and two first-round pick swaps to the Jazz for Kessler and then signed him to a four-year, $130-million contract.

They wanted to add quality depth, which the Lakers did by getting Quentin Grimes, Jaden Hardy, Collin Sexton, Matisse Thybulle, Ziaire Williams, Sandro Mamukelashvili and Kevon Looney.

Pelinka said this was the “thesis” on how they wanted to build the Lakers for the 2026-27 season.

“And there were three fundamental pillars of what we wanted to accomplish in the offseason: We wanted to retain Austin Reaves. That was a really big thing for us,” Pelinka said. “We wanted to find a way to acquire a franchise center and then we wanted to develop a roster of JJ Redick dribble-pass-shoot players that were younger and add depth to our roster. That was sort of our three-prong thesis basketball-wise for the offseason, and we felt like we accomplished all those things.

“Re-signing Austin, putting together a trade to acquire Walker Kessler, and then building out our team with young players that could dribble-pass-shoot, and have brought the average age of our roster to around 26 or 27, which lines up so perfectly with building a team around Luka Doncic. That’s what we’re here to talk about today, is our offseason and the excitement heading into this year.”

Lakers top executive Rob Pelinka, with reporters in the foreground, addresses the media at the team’s training facility in El Segundo on Thursday.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Pelinka, who held the news conference with Redick by his side, was asked about the new Lakers ownership group of Bob Iger and Joshua Kushner, who purchased the franchise for a record $12.5 billion from Dodgers owner and Guggenheim Partners’ Mark Walter, who owned the Lakers for about a year. The deal hasn’t been finalized but is expected to be approved by the NBA’s Board of Governors.

“We have had introductory meetings with Bob and Josh, and those have been excellent,” Pelinka said. “With a pending transaction, we’re not at liberty to talk more about that under league rules. But we’ve had preliminary discussions with them that have been really, really positive. In terms of day-to-day, nothing’s changed. We’re operating with Lakers excellence.”

The biggest change is James not being with the Lakers.

After the Lakers were eliminated by the Oklahoma City Thunder in May, James expressed interest in re-signing with the team.

Pelinka even said the Lakers wanted James to retire with the franchise.

But that didn’t happen.

“Again, we’re grateful for the LeBron era,” Pelinka said. “I think the communications with him this offseason were held diplomatically, professionally and honestly. I’m so thankful for the partnership that we had that continued up until this summer when a decision was made for him to play for another team. It was done amicably, professionally, gracefully. We looked at the whole thing with gratitude, because it’s been an incredible era for us here.”

They mentioned “The Odyssey,” they talked about “Lord of the Rings,” they referenced “The Hobbit,” they cited the hero’s journey, they predicted a season filled with mythological tales of triumph.

What they didn’t promise was that their Lakers’ team would contend for a championship.

What they couldn’t mention was what will happen to them if they don’t.

The bard Rob Pelinka? Off with your head!

The soothsayer JJ Redick? Drawn and quartered!

In their annual pre-training camp news conference at their practice facility Thursday, Pelinka and Redick talked about fictional characters perhaps because the reality is too grim for words.

Their jobs are on the line with a rebuilding team that might not be good enough to save them, and no amount of cute Gandalf references can change that.

With new ownership, the Lakers’ braintrust no longer has the protection of the benevolent Buss family or the baseball-centric Mark Walter.

Here’s guessing Bob Iger and Joshua Kushner will want any excuse to put their own people in charge of their $12.5-billion investment. And if this clearly rebuilding Lakers team doesn’t quickly measure up to the brand that Iger and Kushner purchased, they’ll have that excuse.

In his nine full seasons as the Lakers’ basketball boss, Pelinka constructed the 2020 bubble championship team, but destroyed it soon thereafter and hasn’t won since.

In his two seasons as Lakers coach, Redick became the first Lakers coach to win 50-plus games in consecutive seasons since Phil Jackson. But Redick was always LeBron James’ choice, and now that James is gone — thank goodness! — Redick will have to prove himself all over again to the new guys.

He’s already off to an awkward start considering his answer to a question about who would join Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves and Walker Kessler in the starting lineup. He referenced the lame internet criticism that the Lakers couldn’t win because they were now led by too many white guys.

“I’m pretty confident in three of the spots,” he said. “The other two spots will not be two white guys.”

Um, OK.

Redick acknowledged that all those new potential starters — Quentin Grimes, Collin Sexton, Kevon Looney, Matisse Thybulle and others — can band together to turn this season into a mythological masterpiece.

“Part of the Hero’s journey is allies and gods,” he said, referring to stories about ordinary folk who are transformed by triumphant adventures. “And so I think if you look at “Lord of the Rings,” right? All the guys from “The Hobbit,” those guys had to be connected. They had to embrace the fact that they were allies, right? … You’re not gonna get through the journey without that. Or the journey’s gonna be even more tumultuous than it is because the reality is there will be ordeals and trials along the way.”

At this point Pelinka jumped in, saying, “So I’m a big Tolkien guy. Are you Samwise or Frodo?”

Answered Redick, “Uh, I’m simultaneously Samwise and Gandalf.”

Replied Pelinka: “Gandalf. That’s even better.”

Rob Pelinka (left), the Lakers general manager/president of basketball operations, speaks to the media with coach JJ Redick on Thursday at the team’s training facility in El Segundo.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

In San Antonio they’re talking about Wemby, in Oklahoma City they’re talking about SGA, and in Los Angeles they’re talking about … Frodo?

Tumultuous indeed. Welcome to life after LeBron, with Pelinka essentially starting the news conference by answering the biggest question of the summer — why did the James and Laker marriage fail?

Except he didn’t answer it.

“I’m so thankful for the partnership that we had that continued up until this summer when a decision was made for him to play for another team,” he said.

A decision was made by whom? James said it was him. It says here it was the Lakers, who needed to move him out if they were going to move ahead.

Pelinka didn’t elaborate, instead focusing on a popular reference that he sort of botched.

“We’ve talked about every season is a little bit like ‘The Odyssey,’ if anyone has seen the movie,” he said before someone corrected him. “Oh, it was actually a poem. Fair enough.”

The poem wasn’t this complicated.

“You launch a season, and there’s things that happen throughout that you can’t predict, but you have to stay together as a group and stay strong,” Pelinka said. “That’s a great theme for us.”

Pelinka will be going through his own Odyssey this season, as evidenced by his defense of his accomplishments.

“If you look at the teams that we’re wanting to go shoulder-to-shoulder with, the Thunder and the Spurs maybe in the West. … They had to lose many seasons to get high picks and we just don’t have the luxury of that here,” he said. “Again, the expectations are every year (to) win, get in the playoffs, make a run, and so we feel like we’ve been able to do that. As I’ve started, since I’ve been here in the leadership position, we’ve been a playoff team and we have to continue to do that.”

Redick was also playing defense, saying, “No one is a championship-level team on September 29. There’s not a team in the league that is a championship-level team. That is an ongoing process throughout the year. Rob talks about his job in that. Well, I have a job in that. Our players have a job in that. I’m confident we’re gonna develop as a team into a championship-level team this year. “

This season will live forever in Lakers folklore if they do.

There could be a medieval bloodbath if they don’t.