No Booker, No Beal? Thursday's Game vs. Suns Now Must-Win Opportunity for The Lakers.

Fans were hoping to get a truly marquee matchup Thursday night in the Lakers home opener, with the high-powered, star-driven Phoenix Suns paying a visit to the Crypt. Well, with Bradley Beal and Devin Booker both listed as doubtful, that seems unlikely. Players don't typically get upgraded after being downgraded, and certainly not this early in the year.

So that means it's the Lakers vs. Kevin Durant and ... well, a lot of players casual fans might not know exist.

So in a tightly packed, crabs-in-a-bucket Western Conference, that kind of makes tonight a must win. Not in the sense of immediate, season ending consequences (it's not Game 7 of a postseason series), but this season, when a contender has a chance to take a game off another contender, whether because of injury or whatever, it needs to be done. The Suns do have Durant, but the Lakers roll out the far better roster, and need to take advantage or this becomes a game they might regret in six months.

Meanwhile, LeBron James played 29 minutes in the opener in Denver, and this seems like it is part of the team's larger process. So while conventionally, teams would try to keep a star's minutes down by playing him a normal load when it's demanded, the Lakers are at least early on, baking those low minutes into the script. Is this ultimately the better way to go about it?

Well, if you win, it certainly could be. But that means they have to win, and other guys will need to fill the void created by four or five fewer minutes of James on the floor.

Finally, Darvin Ham went with Cam Reddish against the Nuggets, as opposed to Max Christie. Reddish did ok, starting slow but getting better as the game went on. But the idea he was out there over Christie would (right or wrong, fair or unfair) seem strange to people watching the lead up to the season. Was it a matchups thing? (Denver is big!) Or does Ham see something in Reddish he wants to try and build out?

HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky

SEGMENT 1: No Booker, no Beal means the Lakers need to win on Thursday.

SEGMENT 2: Are the Lakers approaching LeBron's minutes with a sensible plan?

SEGMENT 3: Reddish vs. Christie.

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