Following a rough start to last season, the Los Angeles Lakers would make a number of moves around the trade deadline and completely transform their team. Now with more depth and pieces that fit better around the superstar duo of LeBron James and Anthony Davis, and the emergence of Austin Reaves into a borderline All-Star caliber player, the Lakers made a run all the way to the Western Conference Finals.
This offseason was all about continuity for the Lakers as the front office retained key free agents such as Reaves, Rui Hachimura and D’Angelo Russell. Additionally, the team made other moves to bring in solid depth pieces who fit what they are looking for in Gabe Vincent, Taurean Prince, Jaxson Hayes and Cam Reddish. All of this has led to a lot of optimism surrounding the Lakers heading into the 2023-24 season.
The talk from the organization has been about the main goal of bringing home a championship this year and the Lakers now know the road they will have to travel to reach that goal as their 2023-24 regular season schedule has been released:
#Lakers full 2023-24 regular season schedule; pic.twitter.com/TKzX2Jnzxp
— Daniel Starkand (@DStarkand) August 17, 2023
As usual, the Lakers will be all over national TV this season with nearly half of their games being broadcast nationally. Of the Lakers’ 82 contests, 40 will take place on either ESPN, ABC, TNT or NBA TV including four of their first five games of the year. The Lakers also have 15 back-to-backs on their schedule with the league average being 14.
Some of the key games were already known and they are some huge ones. The Lakers will kick off their season in Denver against the NBA Champion Nuggets on ring night. The back and forth between the two teams, and particularly the two coaches, has continued since the Nuggets swept the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals and emotions will be high as the Lakers look to ruin this ceremony.
It was also known that the Lakers will host the star-studded Phoenix Suns in their home opener while Christmas Day will be a battle against their biggest rival in the Boston Celtics.
This is also the first year of the NBA’s new In-Season Tournament and the Lakers will compete in West Group A. The group stage games will take place at Phoenix on Friday, Nov. 10, at home against Memphis on Tuesday, Nov. 14, in Portland on Friday, Nov. 17, and welcoming Utah on Tuesday, Nov. 21. A portion of the schedule was then blocked off for the Knockout Stages, which will be replaced with regular seasons games for teams that don’t make it.
Lakers have a pair of long road trips in second half of the season
The sign of a great team is their ability to win on the road and the Lakers will have to do that in the second half of the season as they have a pair of six-game road trips in the second half of the year.
The first is from Jan. 27 to Feb. 5 and includes trips to Golden State, Boston and New York. The second is near the end of the year from March 26 to April 3 and kicks off with a back-to-back in Milwaukee and Memphis.
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