The Lakers are about one week away from training camp, and it looks like they will forego this year’s player minicamp, which is usually headed by LeBron James.
This year, the Lakers may abandon an annual ritual that dates back to LeBron James’ arrival.
With a few notable exceptions, the Lakers have hosted a players-led minicamp the week before the start of the preseason in almost every season since LeBron moved to Los Angeles.
The team’s championship year in Las Vegas and the previous season’s camp in San Diego are only two of the places the camp has been hosted. But unless there’s a major last-minute change, minicamp is probably not happening for the Lakers this season.
Dan Woike of the Los Angeles Times disclosed in his most recent email that there are no intentions to keep the camp going this season (emphasis added).
LeBron James appeared on Lakers’ social media this week in the team’s weight room, a sign that his post-Olympic reset has come to a close. These kinds of long summers, the one that he and Anthony Davis agreed to in service of country, push everything else back and change offseason plans.
Both players are back in the gym, though things in the upcoming weeks will be a little different. The team, as of now, will not be taking one of the player-led minicamps that it’s done in the past.
The “as of now” is a fair caveat, but Lakers have media day on Monday, Sep. 30 and training camp starts the next day. If they’re having a minicamp, it’s going to be this week or over the weekend at the latest.
As Woike notes, the summer schedule of AD and LeBron probably impacted this. Both of them playing in the Olympics meant they didn’t have their typical rest. Perhaps that led to them not being as eager to head up a players minicamp, too.
To be fair, while it feels like a missed opportunity, there wasn’t really a correlation between that camp leading to success during the regular season or playoffs. I mean, they had one last year and [gestures wildly at regular season].
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