The Lakeshow Review

The Los Angeles Lakers have finalized their batch of Las Vegas Summer League games, after falling tonight to the Denver Nuggets, by a score of 106-84. Following a loss to the Celtic last yesterday, LA looked to rebound and finalize the Vegas tournament on a high note. Unfortunately they played perhaps their worst game of Summer League thus far, and were unable to find their footing. Yesterday’s injury to forward Darius Bazley, one of the team’s standouts, coupled with Head Coach Lindsay Harding’s decision to rest other key contributors such as Dalton Knecht and Bronny James, left the Lakers vulnerable and thin on talent. Ultimately, they couldn’t keep up with Denver’s more complete team effort.

Cole Swider led the Lakers with 17 points on 6-15 shooting, including 2-8 from long distance. The 26 year-old forward has shown flashes of potential, both in this and last year’s Summer League games. But despite his obvious gift for shooting the basketball, he lacks the defensive tools to be a viable rotational player at the NBA level. I still think he’s the obvious candidate for that last 2-way spot, especially after Darius Bazley’s unfortunate sidelining. LA could surely use Swider’s shooting prowess should they need it in a pinch.

Aside from Swider, LA endured a dearth in scoring from the rest of its starting five. With two players scoring 0 points, and the four starters not named Swider combining to score 9 points. They did receive some solid contributions off the bench, with R.J. Davis scoring 17 points on 6-11 shooting, Ethan Taylor providing 15 points on 5-9 shooting and Sir’ Jabari Rice tallying 14 points on 5-9 shooting. Unfortunately, they were no match for Denver’s balanced attack, who themselves boasted three of five starters in double digits scoring, including 22 points from shooting guard Curtis Jones. They also collected 40 bench points total.

The Lakers continued to feature a disjointed offensive attack, and in keeping with their Summer League trend, they were unable to get good looks for their shooters to knock down. Effort-wise, the team left much to be desired in the rebounding department, handily losing that battle 53-37. Their transition offense was also anemic, predictably after sitting most if not all of their key guys. I was not a fan of the team’s coaching in Summer League, as they relied mostly on their players’ abilities to play one-on-one. When most of the talent was sidelined tonight, the team had nothing in the way of schemes to keep their offense afloat, and it showed. They lost ugly and looked both lost and undisciplined on offense. Guys like Ethan Taylor and R.J. Davis did what they could to make this a contest, but Denver eventually pulled away late with their aggressive defense and timely transition counters, which led to several open shots. They were the better team.

The Lakers end Summer League play with a combined 3-4 mark, combining both the Cali Classic and the Vegas Tournament. My main takeaway from Summer League is it has been greatly disappointing. The main goal being obviously to win. The second being tracking the progress of those NBA hopefuls to make the leap to the NBA. None of these guys seem NBA rotation-ready, and the one guy who we know is, Dalton Knecht, showed signs of regression. It’s still too early to call, so we’ll see what he looks like come pre-season. As I mentioned before, this team’s scouting is also lacking. While other teams load up on players with NBA-adjacent skill sets, the Lakers seem to fiill their roster with non-standouts who don’t possess any NBA skills. None of these guys can shoot, run an offense or score in the half-court. It was painful to watch. One of the main things new owner Mark Walter ought to do is completely revamp the scouting department. We want to see the Lakers compete and look like they belong against the rest of the league when it comes to lower level competiton such as G-League and Summer League. This shows the fans that the team cares about player development, and better yet, can rely on their internal youth system to fill small gaps on the roster. We see teams call up guys from the G-League all the time. If a team needs some shooting , or frontcourt depth, they can look to their lower levels to plug those holes. Can the Lakers do that? After watching all seven games of Summer League in 2025, the answer is no, they can’t. If Mark Walter wants the Lakers to be anything like his Dodgers, then scouting, player development and the G-League will need to be key areas of focus, and improvement. I don’t expect there to be any overnight makeovers. But as long as we see incremental changes over time, then that’s progress, and progress is good. Anyways, on to NBA Pre-Season now. Go Lakers.