The Los Angeles Lakers are set for their preseason finale against the Phoenix Suns on Thursday in Palm Springs in what will be a highly anticipated contest by preseason standards. For head coach Darvin Ham, it will be one last contest to work out the best lineups and rotations for his team headed into Opening Night against the Denver Nuggets.
A contest with the Suns is a big test for the Lakers on both ends of the court and the two squads, both of whom are viewed as top Western Conference teams going into the season, will face off in the Lakers’ home opener next week as well.
But with this being the last preseason game, Ham is looking at the contest as basically a dress rehearsal for the Lakers, at least for the first three quarters.
“We got a few days in between now and then,” Ham said. “As we build up toward it, obviously it’ll be a little bit of a test run for us, to see what our normal rotation looks like, that being the last preseason game of the preseason. For three quarters we’ll see what we look like and again, in between time continue to try to get better at different things.”
Exactly what Ham’s rotation will be has been the biggest question throughout training camp as the Lakers have such great depth. The team’s fifth starter, how to divvy up minutes between the team’s plethora of wing and guard options, not to mention the team’s bigs and getting Anthony Davis more minutes at power forward, are the things Ham and the Lakers coaching staff will need to figure out.
This contest on Thursday against the Suns will give everyone a good idea of what to expect for the Lakers going into the season. With minimal injuries to this point, most of which don’t seem likely to linger into the season, Darvin Ham is going to have most of his full array of weapons available at his disposal. The preseason finale will show how he intends to use them.
Lakers coach Darvin Ham says monitoring LeBron James workload will be ‘day-to-day deal’
Of course a top priority throughout the season will be keeping LeBron James as fresh as possible. Ham, Rob Pelinka, LeBron himself and the rest of the Lakers staff will be collaborating daily to ensure that.
“It’s a day-by-day deal. It’s been a great thing to collaborate with the medical staff and with him, myself, Rob [Pelinka]. We’ll come up with a solid plan,” Ham said. “Again, it’s easy with him to navigate those so-called challenges of the unknown because he takes such good care of himself. Constantly preparing himself.
“Again, not just to be available but available at the highest level, and again, we’ll just take it day-by-day and see where it goes, but just definitely him playing half of the (preseason) games. That was the plan and is the plan. We won’t waver from that, but outside of that, everything else, we’ll just take it day by day.”
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