Luol Deng has been a part of 12 opening nights in his career, but the new Laker is nonetheless excited for the feeling of tipping off a new season on Wednesday.
“If it ever goes away, it’s probably time to retire,” Deng said at Tuesday’s practice. “I don’t think I’m there. I don’t think I’m close.”
Deng’s young teammate, Julius Randle, has similar feelings heading into his third year in the league. But this season is also unique for Randle given that it is the first under new head coach Luke Walton.
“It’s a whole different feel, man,” Randle said. “I was talking to Metta (World Peace) before. The energy is different. I think we’re sure of ourselves as a team and as a unit.”
So far, the young Lakers have taken to Walton, who went 39-4 as interim coach for Golden State last season. Randle even joked that the team is shooting to go 40-3 for Walton, who wasn’t officially given any of the wins, which instead went to Steve Kerr.
And while Walton was a key cog for the Warriors’ past two seasons, even Kerr admitted during the preseason that he has always been a Laker at heart and that “we just borrowed him.”
Walton played nine seasons with the Lakers from 2003-12, winning two championships along the way,s and expects that the opener will be special for him.
“The nerves will be running, but I think that’s a good thing,” Walton said. “I like that feeling. But I imagine walking out there tomorrow night at Staples (Center) for game one of the regular season will be pretty emotional.”
Walton’s young team will remain far from a finished product for quite some time, as he expects them to take at least a year or two to fully pick up his system.
For the time being, he doesn’t want them to get lost in the pressure of representing the Lakers.
“Even though this is one of the greatest sports organization in the history of all sports, at this moment in time the only thing that matters is our guys we have in here,” he said.
Walton wants his team to “play hard, play well, be good at defense and don’t foul” in Wednesday’s opener against the Rockets. That last mandate might be difficult considering they are playing against James Harden — who was second in the league in scoring last year (29.0) and led the NBA in made free throws (8.8).
Harden — who had previously been Houston’s main ball handler anyway — moved over to point guard in the offseason and led the preseason in assists with 10.7 per contest.
“He’s always been that focal point and that head of the snake,” Jordan Clarkson said. “He’s going to be aggressive. He’s going to get in the paint. What we’ve got to do is keep him off the foul line, force him into tough shots and make other guys make plays.”
In addition, Houston brought in another pair of scorers in Ryan Anderson and Eric Gordon, while also hiring former Lakers head coach Mike D’Antoni to run the team.
While D’Antoni wasn’t overwhelmingly successful in Los Angeles, he is one of the NBA’s greatest offensive minds, and the Rockets already led the preseason in scoring with 118.6 points per game.
“They have firepower all over that court,” Walton said. “A lot of the schemes that we did (against Houston) the last two years (at Golden State) — we’re not going to put that in a one-game situation.”
Note: Reserve point guard Jose Calderon (left calf strain) is out for the opener.