The 2026-27 NBA regular season is getting underway and with that comes a brand new era for the league’s most successful team over the past 50 years. The Los Angeles Lakers are beginning their first season without LeBron James, who left in free agency to join the Philadelphia 76ers. The Lakers decided to build around two stars in their late-20s in Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves, who make up the bulk of the payroll for the Purple & Gold for 2026-27. With some moves made in the offseason to acquire and sign new players onto the roster, the team turnover from the previous season could not be any more striking. With plenty of players from the 2025-26 roster departing in free agency, there are plenty of brand new names who will be wearing Lakers jerseys this season. Before the season tips off against the Golden State Warriors on Wed, Oct 21 at Crypto.com Arena, let’s see who’s new to the team and what their value on the roster will ultimately be.
The Big Man Trade & Sign: Walker Kessler Comes to Town After Missing Most of 2025-26 Season on Utah Jazz, Who Acquired High Draft Capital From Lakers
In their first big move in the offseason, the Purple & Gold agreed to trade unprotected first round picks in 2031 and 2033 and first-round pick swaps in 2028 and 2030 to the Utah Jazz to acquire Walker Kessler, a fifth-year center drafted out of Auburn University in 2022. Kessler had missed all but five games in the 2025-26 season for a rebuilding Jazz team, but his career numbers were solid for a contributing big man. Kessler will hope to replicate good scoring, rebounding and blocking numbers as the new starting center for the Purple & Gold, who moved on from DeAndre Ayton and Jaxson Hayes in free agency.
Kessler made his unofficial team debut on Tue, Oct 13 in an exhibition game in Las Vegas against the Warriors where he scored 11 points and grabbed nine rebounds in 16 minutes of play. Kessler also played in the final preseason game for the Lakers against the Denver Nuggets on Fri, Oct 16, when he scored six points, grabbed six rebounds and had four assists in 31 minutes of action. Kessler will be backed up by veteran big-man Kevon Looney, who came over from the New Orleans Pelicans after spending a lot of his career with Golden State. Kessler will seek to be a good assist target for both Doncic and Reaves as he will look to be an improvement in the rebounding department for the Lakers this season.
The Backcourt Gets Some New Faces as Quentin Grimes, Collin Sexton and Matisse Thybulle Fill in For Departed Guards in L.A.
The backcourt around both Doncic and Reaves has changed significantly, with the free agent departures of Marcus Smart, Luke Kennard and others. With that transition, new faces have come in the form of Quentin Grimes, Collin Sexton and Matisse Thybulle. Along with rookie guard Cameron Carr and young guard Jaden Hardy, the backcourt for the Purple & Gold will look vastly different than it did in 2025-26.
Grimes is a 26-year old who started his career out with the New York Knicks and then played for the Detroit Pistons in his third season. Grimes played with the Dallas Mavericks in 2024-25, meaning he was a teammate of Doncic’s before Luka got traded to the Lakers in a blockbuster deal on Feb 1, 2025. Grimes himself was dealt to the Philadelphia 76ers, where he spent all of last season. Grimes has averaged 11 points per game in his career along with three rebounds and two assists. His three-point shooting numbers average out to 36.6% and he is a 44.6% shooter from the entire floor. Grimes is expected to take on a starting role with the Lakers at the start of this season as the small forward, but that could change depending on his efficiency and the performances of other Lakers players.
Sexton is an eight-year veteran who began his career with the Cleveland Cavaliers and then spent three seasons in Utah before playing for the Charlotte Hornets and Chicago Bulls last year. Sexton has career averages of 15.4 points per game and 3.6 assists per game. Listed as the backup to Reaves, Sexton will serve as a valuable bench player at the beginning of the season. Thybulle is listed as a guard and forward option with his 6’5” frame and as a seven-year veteran, he is more of a defensive option than an offensive scorer. With career averages of 1.6 steals and 0.8 blocks per game, Thybulle looks to be a good defender off the bench, a role that he held with the Sixers and Portland Trail Blazers in his time so far in the NBA.
Hardy and Carr are the two young options in the guard room. Hardy has experience as a bench guard with the Mavericks and Washington Wizards, with 8.4 PPG, 1.7 RPG and 1.3 APG. With a 38.6% mark from three-point land, Hardy is an appealing small guard option for the Lakers in case an injury happens to Reaves or Sexton in the small guard position. Meanwhile, Carr is a rookie drafted out of Baylor and he played in the first two preseason games for the Purple & Gold before suffering a leg contusion. Carr could potentially prove to be a good rotation player if conditions warrant, but he might spend most of his rookie season as a benchwarmer or compete on the G-League Coachella Valley Lakers squad. Either way, the new guards for the Lakers this season seek to play well alongside Doncic and Reaves, who are the foundational pillars of this franchise.
The Forwards Include Zaire Williams, Jake LaRavia and Another Player Whose Last Name Might Be the Longest One in Franchise History
The forward room for the Purple & Gold is radically different this season with the departures of LeBron and Rui Hachimura in free agency. Jake LaRavia is one of only three sure-fire rotation players back from last season’s roster and he is expected to be a starter as the power forward at the beginning of this season. But a couple of new options are present for the forwards as one of them was a high school player at Sierra Canyon High School and another might have the longest surname without a hyphen in it for a player in team history.
The long-named player in question is Sandro Mamukelashvili, who is from the Eastern European nation of Georgia. Mamukelashvili played for the Toronto Raptors last season and scored a career high 11.2 points per game along with having roughly five rebounds per game and two assists per game as well. Mamu was mostly a bench player for Toronto as he was in his previous two teams in the San Antonio Spurs and Milwaukee Bucks. As a left-handed shooter who played his college career at Seton Hall, Mamukelashvili will seek to be a good bench shooter from three-point range(his career average is 36.6% entering his sixth season).
Ziaire Williams is a tall forward at 6’9” and he played his first five seasons with the Memphis Grizzlies and Brooklyn Nets respectively. Williams also played his high school basketball at Sierra Canyon and was teammates with Bronny James for a couple of seasons before playing collegiately at Stanford for one year. Williams has career averages of 8.7 points, three rebounds and 0.8 steals. As a high-jumping forward, Williams is a potential lob dunk option for Doncic and Reaves, but his role will be from the bench like his fellow forward options in Mamukelashvili and Thybulle.
The rest of the Lakers roster features bench warming players such as Jarred Vanderbilt, Adou Thiero and Bronny James. Dalton Knecht was waived from the roster to cut it down to 15 players before the beginning of the regular season. So, JJ Redick and his coaching staff will lead a much different roster for the Purple & Gold heading into a 2026-27 season that will show whether they can defy lowered expectations and make a deep playoff run. With a long six-month journey tipping off in downtown L.A tomorrow evening, the Lakers will look to begin a new era in stylish fashion in their first couple weeks of competition.
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