SACRAMENTO — Adou Thiero is going to have an opportunity with the Lakers he didn’t have this time last year.
And he’s cherishing it.
The Lakers uber-athletic forward is healthy and available for the team’s preseason slate, starting with Monday’s opener against the Kings at Golden 1 Center.
It’s a much different place Thiero found himself in this time last year, when he missed the entire 2025 Las Vegas Summer League, 2025 preseason and start of the 2025-26 regular season because of left knee ailments.
And with the Lakers undergoing a significant roster reconstruction over the summer, Thiero is looking to seize the chance for more playing time.
“I feel like I have a pretty great opportunity in front of me considering the guys that aren’t here anymore,” Thiero said Monday afternoon after the team’s shootaround. “And now everybody’s still trying to figure out where to be at. So that gives me an opportunity to [earn a spot in the rotation].”
Thiero earned a lot of praise for his performance during training camp in the week leading up to Monday’s preseason game.
It came after coach JJ Redick said Thiero had an “unbelievable last two months of development” after having uninterrupted time in the gym for the first time since the Lakers selected the No. 36 pick in the 2025 draft.
“His body’s been in great shape,” Redick said, “and he’s just gotten better.”
Thiero has a better understanding of what the coaching staff wants of him after playing 25 regular games (149 minutes) in 2025-26, six of the Lakers’ 10 playoff games last season and in Summer League in July.
“It’s different watching it, and then it’s different going in there and actually doing it and understanding it,” Thiero said. “So being able to go out there and actually do it and understand it now, I understand everything a lot better than around this time last year. Last year, they threw me in and I’m still a little confused on some things because that might be my first time actually doing it. And that’s during a live game. But now I’m doing that in practice and everything, I’m a lot more comfortable.”
Star guard Austin Reaves said during training camp that Thiero has been asking him a lot of questions since the summer.
“AR’s one of the best offensive players in the league. So just being able to play defense against him…he’s so crafty, like there’s multiple different ways he can score,” Thiero said. “Shooting, getting to the rim, floaters, little pull-ups, even whenever he gets into his little foul baiting. So just being able to guard him, that’s setting me up to guard the other players, good offensive players too.”
Thiero’s NBA career trajectory is imperative to the Lakers’ future.
As Redick put it, “if we can develop the Adou and develop [rookie wing] Cam [Carr] and develop these guys into functional rotation NBA players over the next 12 to 24 months, it changes our ceiling.”
Which makes Thiero’s playing during the next two weeks of preseason a signficant storyline to monitor.
