While the Los Angeles Lakers 2021-22 season did not go as planned with the organization missing the playoffs altogether despite having championship aspirations, there remains optimism that the team can turn it around in 2022-23.
The Lakers still have the dynamic duo of LeBron James and Anthony Davis, and a big focus for them in free agency was to add youth around their stars, with them ultimately succeeding in that regard.
Russell Westbrook is still on the roster, although for how much longer remains to be seen as the Lakers reportedly have a ‘soft deadline’ of the start of training camp to trade him.
Regardless of if Westbrook is there or not, the Lakers will have a tough schedule in 2022-23 and now they know when exactly they will be playing each team as the full NBA schedule for the upcoming season has been released:
Here’s the #Lakers full 2022-23 schedule: pic.twitter.com/PHISSoNJRU
— Daniel Starkand (@DStarkand) August 17, 2022
As is usually the case, the Lakers have a ton of national TV games in 2022-23 as even though they may not be a top-tier team as currently constructed, they’re still a huge brand with star power on the roster. As such, the Lakers have 39 national TV games this season.
Some other fun facts on the Lakers’ schedule is that 24 of 41 home games are on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday, the team has 12 back-to-backs, three five-game homestands, two five-game road trips and one six-game road trip.
While the full-season schedule is now out, the Lakers already knew some of their marquee games as it was previously leaked that L.A. would be taking on the Golden State Warriors on Opening Night and the Dallas Mavericks on Christmas Day. Both are road games for the Lakers, which is a rarity, especially on Christmas.
One other game to watch for is March 7 against the Memphis Grizzlies as the Lakers also announced that they will retire Pau Gasol’s No. 16 jersey that night, something that is long overdue.
Lakers face gauntlet to begin season
Getting off to a fast start will be imperative for the Lakers in 2022-23 to avoid a repeat of last season.
Unfortunately though, the start to the Lakers’ season will be a gauntlet as after taking on the Warriors on Opening Night they will fly home to host the L.A. Clippers and then take on a number of tough Western Conference teams like the Portland Trail Blazers, Denver Nuggets, Minnesota Timberwolves and New Orleans Pelicans
With this tough of a schedule to begin the year, Darvin Ham will need to put a huge emphasis on having a productive training camp and preseason to get his team ready.
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