NBA preseason stats have to be taken with a grain of salt, but they're a bit more meaningful when they tell the same story we've watched unfold over the past two regular seasons. And that's why the Los Angeles Lakers could be in big trouble.
The Lakers snapped up Deandre Ayton not long after he hit free agency, negotiating a buyout with the Portland Trail Blazers. The last time he was a free agent, back in 2022, he received a four-year, $133 million offer sheet from the Indiana Pacers, which was matched by the Phoenix Suns. This time around, it only cost $16.6 million and two years to add him. The difference was three seasons of lackluster, half-hearted basketball that reinforced his reputation as a player who doesn't meaningfully affect winning.
The Lakers were clearly hoping that could change in LA, playing next to LeBron James and Luka Dončić. The first two preseason games imply there were way too optimistic.
Deandre Ayton looks like the same old player
Through the Lakers first two preseason contests, a pair of losses to the Suns and Warriors, Ayton has played 38 minutes, scoring 8 points on 3-of-10 shooting, with 15 rebounds and 4 blocks. His shooting percentages are going to come up, especially with Dončić and James feeding him easy shots. I mean, he still put 15 and 10 last season — he's going to score some points and grab some boards for the Lakers. And four blocks is not nothing.
The problem is everything else.
The Lakers were outscored by 27 points in the 38 minutes he was on the floor. He had five turnovers to one assist. The Suns and Warriors shot 14-of-23, 61 percent, inside of 8 feet with him on the court. It's not entirely apples to apples, but 61 percent inside of 8 feet would have been the fifth-worst mark of any team defense during the 2024-25 regular season.
Ayton has the tools to be a good defender, and he's mustered the effort at times. But it's hard to imagine him as the centerpiece of an above average defense. You may have seen the highlight of Al Horford's sharp pass to a cutting Steph Curry, and his acrobatic reverse layup. You may have missed Ayton leisurely strolling into the frame, crossing the 3-point line once Curry has the ball in his hands and an open lane in front of him.
Horford to Steph play making is beautiful 🔥pic.twitter.com/nujmQPeFrX
— Curry Flurry 😈 (@babyfacedubs) October 6, 2025
You might have also missed Moses Moody blowing past him for a baseline dunk, the Warriors first points of the game.
Or standing and watching Steph Curry curl into a wide-open floater about a minute later.
Or the Warriors very next bucket, where he missed a dunk and then left his teammates to play 4-on-5 for roughly nine seconds before he arrived, unsure of who he was supposed to be defending, just in time to watch Moses Moody drain a jumper.
There's a learning curve on a new team. It takes a while to adjust to a new scheme, to learn rotations and the tendencies and weaknesses of his teammates. But these are basics — effort, hustle, situational awareness when the greatest shooter in NBA history is on the court. It's just not very encouraging to watch him struggle in these particular ways, knowing how much it reinforces his pattern from the past two years in Portland, and how much the Lakers are relying on him to be a defensive difference-maker.
The Lakers are still very much a preseason contender, but defense is still their biggest question mark, and it looks like Deandre Ayton is going to be part of the problem more often than he's part of the solution.