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LeBron James, Rui Hachimura, Gabe Vincent, Maxi Kleber and Jaxson Hayes are in the final year of their contracts. Austin Reaves has a player option for next season, but he’s expected to see what he can earn in free agency. The Lakers can offer him the most — up to five years and $241 million. Deandre Ayton and Marcus Smart also have player options. When a team is going through some struggles — much like the Lakers, who are just 7-8 since Reaves went down with a calf injury on Christmas — playing time and points can become major issues for players looking for new contracts. “I’ve been here for four seasons now and every year it’s almost the same but it’s different,” Rui Hachimura said. “You have to survive too, so I get it, I understand it. I think we talked about before the season winning is going to help. So, we got to focus on that and everything is going to come out.”
Justin Russo: Austin Reaves (left calf strain) is OUT for the Lakers tomorrow against the Clippers. Reaves hasn't played since Christmas due to the injury.
“We’ve complained. We’ve only been on ESPN four times in three months,” Barkley said. “We did the first two weeks. We were off all of December until Christmas, and we’re off all of January until the 24th. I don’t like that at all. “What I was talking about working all the time, I’m not going to do all these damn shows. I’m not going to be on ESPN 1, 2, 3, Deportes, Nacho, Echo, whatever they call it. I’m not going to be doing all that. But I wish we’d have been on more during the first half of the season.”
Dave McMenamin: JJ Redick says Austin Reaves is “progressing well” and will return to the lineup sometime during the Lakers’ 8-game road trip. Some good news for the Lakers, who have been without Reaves because of a left calf strain since Christmas.
The NBA is beginning 2026 with viewership up 18% from the same period last season, as added games on broadcast TV — and fewer on cable — plus another strong Christmas have helped boost gains in Year 1 of a new media deal. Games across ABC/ESPN, NBC and Prime Video have averaged 2.02 million viewers to date, up over what ABC/ESPN and TNT/truTV had at the start of 2025. That average goes closer to 1.8 million if one were to include the nonexclusive games airing on NBA TV.
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The NBA is beginning 2026 with viewership up 18% from the same period last season, as added games on broadcast TV — and fewer on cable — plus another strong Christmas have helped boost gains in Year 1 of a new media deal. Games across ABC/ESPN, NBC and Prime Video have averaged 2.02 million viewers to date, up over what ABC/ESPN and TNT/truTV had at the start of 2025. That average goes closer to 1.8 million if one were to include the nonexclusive games airing on NBA TV. Looking at regional delivery of games, 17 of 29 teams in the U.S. are seeing season-over-season gains thus far. Many of those teams are currently in business with Main Street Sports Group, which missed RSN payments to a number of those franchises recently.
ESPN has had one of its most-viewed starts to the NBA regular season since it started to carry games in 2002. According to the network and Nielsen, ESPN averaged 2.6 million viewers in its first 21 games through Christmas, a 35% increase from last season and the second-most-watched in a full season. The numbers for this season trail only 2010-11.
ESPN's NBA studio shows have also experienced increased viewership. "Inside the NBA" is averaging 1.2 million in its first season on ESPN, up 135% compared to last year's regular-season average on TNT. The Christmas Day edition averaged 5.1 million, the show's most-watched regular season audience. "NBA Today," ESPN's weekday studio show, is averaging 361,000, a 26% increase from this time last year.
With approval from the club’s sporting leadership, Dinwiddie returned to the United States shortly before Christmas following a serious illness within his family.
The NBA saw its best slate of Christmas Day games since 2018, even as the NFL had three games airing up against the five hardwood games. ABC/ESPN/ESPN2 averaged 5.5 million viewers for five games on Christmas, which is the league’s best figure since 5.8 million in 2018 and up 4% from 5.3 million last season. The three afternoon windows saw gains, while the primetime windows were down. The top game was a showdown of the Spurs and Thunder at 2:30pm ET on ESPN/ABC, with that game drawing 6.7 million viewers. That’s the best NBA Christmas game in that window since Cavaliers-Warriors in 2017 drew 8.8 million.
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Klay Thompson had 14 points and hit half of his eight three-pointers on Saturday against the Sacramento Kings. He’s come off the bench for all but one of the last 23 games and he’s averaged a dozen points and shot 38 percent from deep. “For Klay, coming off the bench he’s been great,” Kidd said. “He’s playing his role at a very high level for us. Being able to anchor that second group, being able to get shots for him and then just his voice, not just on the bench or in the locker room, but also on the floor. For our young players, he’s been great.” Even Thompson’s former coach has noticed. “He’s handling his latter years well in terms of accepting a new role and playing that role well,” said Steve Kerr of the Warriors before the Christmas Day game. “We know as soon as Klay comes on the floor, we got to be aware of where he is. We watched it forever. The roof can come off the building with him. He’s still capable of all that.”
Marc Stein: The NBA says it just had its most-watched Christmas Day in 15 years ... excluding the 2011-12 season when Christmas Day was also Opening Day after a work stoppage. More than 47 million viewers on Dec. 25 according to the NBA's figures ... plus that 56/16/15 from Nikola Jokić.
Over the course of his 14-year NBA career, Draymond Green has played on Christmas Day 11 times. But when it comes to his habit of spending his holiday playing basketball, the 4-time NBA champion is somewhat of a Grinch. “To play on a day where everybody’s watching, it’s incredible. All of those things are great. But two things can be true at once: playing on Christmas Day also f*cking sucks,” Green said on the latest episode of The Draymond Green Show.