The first of eighty-two games and nearly six months of NBA basketball tip-off on Thursday night at Staples Center, when the Los Angeles Lakers host the LA Clippers and launch the 2017-18 regular season for both ball clubs.
The 2017-18 NBA season has finally spread to Los Angeles, which means winter is coming, and Thursday night is when Lonzo Ball introduces himself to a national audience tuning in to watch the birth of a highly publicized career live.
"I feel good, ready to go," Ball, who attended UCLA and had an upbringing in Chino Hills, said on the eve of his regular season debut.
Ball added, "My whole family is going to be there."
The hype surrounding Ball is nothing new, and the Lakers look at the point guard as their great hope. Sophomore Brandon Ingram joins Ball as the second prominent figure on the cover of the Lakers' 2017-18 media guide, signaling the reality that the 2017-18 Lakers are counting on a rookie 19-year-old and a soft-spoken 20-year-old to lead the franchise out of the darkness that took over at the sunset of Kobe Bryant's career.
Following a 26-56 season in his debut season in charge of the team, Lakers coach Luke Walton has the challenge of bringing together a new-look side that does not expect to start any of the five players that started in the 2016-17 season opener against the Houston Rockets.
Of the five starters from a season ago, Luol Deng and Julius Randle are the only two players still on the roster, but neither looks to be in the first-choice five for Walton. Larry Nance Jr. appears to be in line to beat out Randle for the starting power forward position, as Nance has taken the bulk of repetitions in practice and in preseason with sure-fire starter Brook Lopez. Deng could lineup as a starter on Thursday, but that has more to do with a leftover two-game suspension for starting shooting guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope than Deng cracking the Lakers' rotation.
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As a reminder, Deng is due to make $18 million for the 2017-18 season, and the 32-year-old will likely collect his check by sitting on the bench for the bulk of the season, especially considering the emergence of enticing rookie forward Kyle Kuzma.
Of course, the Clippers no longer have Chris Paul or Jamal Crawford, so LA's other team is also going through a transition, but the Los Angeles Lakers have changed far more dramatically from April to October than their crosstown rivals. Starting center Timofey Mozgov and starting point guard D'Angelo Russell got shipped out to Brooklyn, and the Lakers replaced Mozgov with Lopez in the middle and drafted Ball to replace Russell in the back court.
Add Ingram to the starting lineup that includes Caldwell-Pope, Lopez and, more than likely, Nance, and the Lakers have an interesting team that has court balance, even if it is still short on experience. Ultimately, the Lakers are a young, rebuilding team that is selling excitement and entertainment more than it is selling wins or playoffs.
Per Bovada, the Los Angeles Lakers were facing a win-totals line of 33.5 for the season as of NBA's Opening Night, which would be a notable improvement over Walton's first season, but that projection still leaves the Lakers well out of the postseason picture.
But then, that's why they roll the ball out and play the games, because a new season offers a blank slate and new hope to prove the analysts and projections wrong. A season ago, Walton had the Lakers playing playoff-level basketball before the water burst and a slew of injuries sent the season in a tailspin.
Thursday is the start of another season of the "LakeShow," the team's 58th season in Los Angeles, and what better way to begin a season than a rivalry game against the Clippers?
Nance spoke for a city painted purple and gold, "I just can't wait."
