The Los Angeles Lakers arrived to Walt Disney World Resort late on Thursday night, with all players being individually quarantined for a couple of days in part of the NBA’s precautions against COVID-19. The night provided some entertainment via J.R. Smith’s Instagram profile, with the players now getting ready to kick off their first practice in four months since the 2019-20 season was suspended. They will be having that practice today, Saturday July 11th, kicking off their practice schedule before their first game on July 30th against the Los Angeles Clippers. You have to wonder how conditioned the players are, but head coach Frank Vogel says you don’t have to wonder too much, saying that the players are in “decent shape” (h/t Mike Trudell of Spectrum SportsNet).
Vogel on getting players ready: “We still have a lot of time. We have to be intelligent with that. Watching our guys work out last week, we put them through some pretty rigourous 1-on-1 work, and they seem to be in decent shape.” (They’re going to get full-court work in today)
— Mike Trudell (@LakersReporter) July 11, 2020
Ryan Ward of ClutchPoints added that Vogel is excited to see all the Lakers in one room and that they’re going to “get after it” today in that full-court work.
#Lakers' Frank Vogel on tonight's practice: "We're going to get after it!"
Vogel mention a lot of the guys are in "decent shape" right now.
— Ryan Ward (@RyanWardLA) July 11, 2020
It’s great to hear from Vogel that the Lakers players were able to stay in shape in the four months of absence from the court, especially considering that there was no guarantee of the NBA season returning and that the players were not being subjected to any team workouts to keep them in shape. It’s not surprising, personally, to hear that the Lakers are in shape. They’re led by arguably the most in-shape person in the NBA in LeBron James, with plenty of other veteran leadership to keep everyone focused on the goal of winning a championship in July…I mean October.
Although the team will not play an actual regular season game until July 30th, the team will have a slightly organized scrimmage against the Dallas Mavericks on July 23rd (for the Lakers’ full schedule please see this post). Although they may not be 100% ready by that scrimmage, they’ll want to be close with the season right around the corner.
One thought