Lakers Weekly Recap: 8/20 – 8/27/21

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LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers high fives Jared Dudley during Game Five of the Western Conference Second Round during the 2020 NBA Playoffs. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)

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LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers high fives Jared Dudley during Game Five of the Western Conference Second Round during the 2020 NBA Playoffs. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)

This week in Lakers news:

Good luck in Dallas, Jared Dudley: The Lakers will be losing a large locker-room presence this year, as Jared Dudley will be leaving the team to be an assisitant coach on head coach Jason Kidd’s new staff on the Dallas Mavericks. After the deal was announced, Dudley did an interview with the LA Times’ Bill Plaschke, saying that he, LeBron James, and Anthony Davis all wanted Dudley to return to the Lakers. Plaschke even stated that Dudley was willing to play with the Lakers on a non-guaranteed contract (h/t Jacob Rude and Silver Screen & Roll). As for coaching, it was reported by Plaschke that the Lakers did not offer that type of role to Dudley.

It sure does seem like LeBron was upset about Dudley’s departure, evidenced in the Tweets below. We’ll just have to wait and see if Dudley’s locker-room presence is sorely missed once the season gets going.

Excuse my language but still one hurt!! For many reasons that you wouldn’t understand.

— LeBron James (@KingJames) August 24, 2021

The full 2021-22 regular season schedule was released: To acknowledge the release of the schedule, our own Donny McHenry went through the top 10 games to look forward to in the full 2021-22 schedule.

Marc Gasol still may not play on the Lakers this season: The New York Times’ Marc Stein reported earlier in the week that although Marc Gasol is currently under contract for one more 2021-22 season with the Lakers, it’s not for certain that he will actually be on the roster once training camp and the preseason comes around. It would not be surprising if the Lakers tried to move him, as they certainly seemed to undervalue him last year when looking at his playing time once Andre Drummond came into the picture.

Lakers among multiple teams interested in Pacers’ Jeremy Lamb: Shout out to Silver Screen & Roll and the Indianapolis Star for the report earlier this week that the Lakers were among multiple teams interested in Jeremy Lamb. Lamb would have to be traded, bought out, or released, as he is currently under contract for another season with the Pacers. He tore his ACL this past February, so interested teams are probably verifying that his health is right before trying to acquire him.