Media Day always sells the faces. Luka Dončić in the new-season photo shoot. Austin Reaves at the podium as a franchise cornerstone. A roster that looks nothing like last spring’s. But when the Los Angeles Lakers open the doors in El Segundo on Monday, September 28, the most important sentence of the day may come from the newcomer standing behind them: Walker Kessler, the center the front office paid a small fortune to acquire, and the player JJ Redick is building an entirely new defense around.
Media Day tips off at roughly 11 a.m. PT, with training camp opening the next morning and the preseason starting October 5 against Sacramento. InfanityTV has already covered the connectivity message, the Grimes starting spot, and Luka’s arrival. Monday’s story is the one that will decide how high this team can actually climb: whether the Lakers can finally defend the rim.
Why Walker Kessler Is the Media Day Headline
The price tells you how badly Los Angeles wanted him. The Lakers landed Kessler from Utah in a sign-and-trade, handing him a four-year, $130 million contract and sending the Jazz unprotected first-round picks in 2031 and 2033 plus first-round swaps in 2028 and 2030. That is most of the franchise’s tradeable draft capital, spent on a 25-year-old who has never played a postseason game and appeared in only five regular-season games in 2025-26 before a torn posterior labrum in his left shoulder required season-ending surgery.
That is exactly why Monday matters. Kessler has not spoken to Los Angeles media as a Lakers player in a full camp setting, and the first questions will be simple ones with enormous stakes: How is the shoulder? Is he full-go for Tuesday’s first practice? And how does he see himself fitting next to two guards making max-level money?
Rob Pelinka has already answered the fit question from the front-office side. At Thursday’s start-of-season press conference he said, “Twenty-five-year-old, two-way centers that are retrofitted perfectly for our two max guys in Luka and Austin just don’t exist.” He added, “Walker Kessler makes Luka better. He makes Austin better — and vice versa.” Redick called him “a perfect fit for Luka and [Reaves],” specifically citing “his rim protection and really being an anchor for our defense.”
The Rim-Protection Problem Kessler Has to Fix
The Lakers won 53 games last season and won their first playoff series since 2023, but they did it despite their defense, not because of it. Los Angeles ranked second-to-last in opponents’ shooting percentage at the rim, allowing 72 percent in the restricted area. Its main centers combined for roughly 1.8 blocks per game. In Kessler’s last healthy campaign, he averaged 2.4 blocks by himself.
His track record is not hype. Since entering the league as the No. 22 pick out of Auburn in 2022, Kessler ranked in the top seven in defensive field-goal percentage difference within six feet of the rim in each of his first three seasons, including third as a rookie and third again in year two. A 9-foot-5 standing reach and quick second jump make him the kind of paint deterrent the Lakers have not had since Anthony Davis was traded in the February 2025 deal that brought Dončić to Los Angeles.
Redick’s Shift Away From Switching Everything
The biggest schematic change of camp is already telegraphed. “I know that we have switched a lot, one through five, over the last two years,” Redick said Thursday. “That has been by necessity.” Without a true rim anchor, switching was a survival tactic. Good offenses exploited it by hunting mismatches and dragging the Lakers’ big man away from the basket.
Kessler changes the math. Redick pointed to how San Antonio deployed Victor Wembanyama in the playoffs, “kept him low and kept him by the basket.” Expect a lot more drop coverage in El Segundo this week, with Kessler protecting the paint and the perimeter players asked to fight over screens instead of passing assignments along.
That puts the pressure on the wings. Redick specifically mentioned Ziaire Williams, Matisse Thybulle, Adou Thiero, Cam Carr, and Quentin Grimes as defenders who “can pick up full court and guard and be disruptive.” Williams and Thybulle each led their previous teams in deflections last season, and Thybulle brings two All-Defensive selections. Redick also said Thiero has had “an unbelievable last two months of development,” the first uninterrupted gym stretch he has had since being drafted.
Four Media Day Questions to Watch
1. Is Kessler’s shoulder fully cleared?
The single most important health answer of the day. Any hesitation about contact work would ripple through the entire defensive install.
2. Who backs him up?
Kevon Looney is slated to be the backup center, but Sandro Mamukelashvili is expected to split time at the four and five. Mamukelashvili guarded centers on more than 40 percent of his possessions in Toronto last season, yet grades poorly as a rim protector. Jarred Vanderbilt could be the tiebreaker if Redick wants a switchable body next to a smaller five.
3. How does Luka talk about defense?
Dončić led the Lakers in deflections last season and arrives with a slimmer frame. With LeBron James gone, Luka and Reaves are the undisputed leaders. If the franchise player frames defense as a priority on day one, it sets the tone for a younger locker room.
4. Does Reaves embrace the chaser role?
Reaves signed a four-year, $180 million deal this summer and will carry a huge offensive load. He has shown he can navigate off-ball screens, and depending on who wins the fifth starting spot, he may draw quicker guards more often.
A Younger Roster Built for One Idea
The Kessler bet only makes sense in context. The Lakers let LeBron James, Marcus Smart, Rui Hachimura, Deandre Ayton, and Luke Kennard walk or move on, and Pelinka described the summer as three pillars: re-sign Reaves, acquire Kessler, and add younger “dribble-pass-shoot” players. “We want this team to grow together,” Pelinka said. “We were very intentional to get younger and deeper.”
That philosophy also explains the defensive pivot. Older rosters conserve energy by switching. Younger, more athletic rosters can pressure the ball, chase over screens, and trust a shot-blocker behind them. Redick summed it up bluntly: “With this group, probably the first time in my three years here that I feel like the pieces actually fit together.”
For more on how the front office framed the Luka era, revisit our breakdown of Pelinka and Redick’s connectivity message.
What Comes After the Cameras
Media Day is theater. Tuesday is when the drop coverage gets installed, the wing rotation starts sorting itself out, and the Lakers find out whether Kessler’s shoulder can handle full-contact work. The preseason begins October 5 against Sacramento, and the regular season arrives October 21, with an early Battle of L.A. against the Clippers on October 23.
Luka will draw the biggest crowd on Monday. Reaves will get the franchise-player questions. But the Lakers’ ceiling this season may be decided by whether the new center can turn a leaky defense into a real one. The answers start today.
