Lakers News: Will Lakers' "Big Three" Play In First Preseason Bout Tomorrow?

Darvin Ham weighs in.

Following a Saturday scrimmage at the Pechanga Recreation Center in Temecula, your Los Angeles Lakers will get to enjoy a reprieve today. Tomorrow, the heavily-reconstituted club will reconvene for a morning shootaround ahead of its first competitive action since April 10th, 2022, a meaningless 146-141 overtime victory against the Denver Nuggets to cap off an already-lost 33-49 season.

L.A. will hit the floor for its first preseason action against the Sacramento Kings Monday night at 7:30 p.m. 

But which Lakers will be lacing up their sneakers for the contest?

Jovan Buha of The Athletic writes that new L.A. head coach Darvin Ham and the team's training staff have yet to officially make a ruling as to the availability of its three most expensive players, star forwards LeBron James (earning $44.5 million this season) and Anthony Davis ($38 million), plus ex-All-Star point guard Russell Westbrook ($47.1 million). The availability of most other season players, like 34-year-old point guard Patrick Beverley (in this writer's estimation, the team's third-best player over Westbrook), was not discussed. 

Returning veteran guard Dennis Schröder, 29, remains in Germany working out a visa issue, and is not set to join the Lakers until midweek, so he is the only official absence as of this juncture.

Ham revealed that he hopes James, Davis, and Westbrook can suit up. Westbrook has been somewhat surprisingly pencilled in as the nominal starting point guard, even though he has proven to be a terrible fit at the position during his one year of service in L.A.

"I mean, if possible, yeah,” Ham said with regards to starting those players. “We’re gonna sit down [Sunday] as a staff and talk about what the rotation is gonna look like on Monday. But definitely. Definitely.”

Buha writes that Davis, for one, expects to play tomorrow. “I don’t know the plan,” Davis revealed. “But I’m pretty sure I’ll be in the lineup.”