The Los Angeles Lakers confirmed their 2026-27 preseason schedule Tuesday, and Golden State keeps showing up â twice, actually â before opening night ever arrives.
For a team that stumbled through last year’s exhibition slate before rattling off a franchise-altering regular season, this five-game trial run carries more scrutiny than the average tune-up.
| Los Angeles Lakers | |||
| 2026 Preseason Schedule | |||
| Date | Home/Away | Opponent | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct. 5 | AWAY | Sacramento Kings | Golden 1 Center â Sacramento, CA |
| Oct. 6 | AWAY | Golden State Warriors | Chase Center â San Francisco, CA |
| Oct. 8 | HOME | Sacramento Kings | Crypto.com Arena â Los Angeles, CA |
| Oct. 13 | HOME | Golden State Warriors | T-Mobile Arena â Las Vegas, NV |
| Oct. 16 | HOME | Denver Nuggets | Crypto.com Arena â Los Angeles, CA |
| PRESENTED BY DELTA | |||
Lakers, Golden State Warriors Clash Twice
Los Angeles opens the preseason on the road Oct. 5 against the Sacramento Kings at Golden 1 Center, then flies the very next night for a matchup with the Golden State Warriors at Chase Center, according to a formal schedule release from Basketnews.
The Kings rematch comes home Oct. 8, when Los Angeles hosts Sacramento at Crypto.com Arena for its first exhibition appearance in front of its own fans. Golden State returns to the calendar Oct. 13, this time in a neutral-site showcase at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, a preseason staple the organization has leaned on for years to reach fans outside Southern California.
Denver closes out the slate Oct. 16, with the Nuggets visiting Crypto.com Arena in what stands as the lone appearance from a non-Pacific Division opponent on the docket. Four of the five games pit Los Angeles against Sacramento or Golden State, a scheduling pattern built around geography, travel costs and the built-in rivalry appeal of familiar Western Conference faces.
The Las Vegas date is nothing new for this front office, which has repeatedly parked a preseason game at T-Mobile Arena as both a fan-outreach play and a low-stakes chance to test rotations away from the usual home-and-road split.
Lakers Look to Erase Last Year’s Preseason Skid
The stakes attached to exhibition basketball are usually theoretical. Not so much last October, when the Lakers limped to a 1-5 preseason mark that told nobody anything about what came next. Los Angeles turned around and posted a 53-29 regular-season record, good for the Pacific Division crown, before knocking out the Houston Rockets in six games in the first round of the playoffs, according to a report from Yahoo Sports.
The run ended in the Western Conference semifinals, swept in four games by the eventual champion Oklahoma City Thunder. Los Angeles enters this preseason having spent the summer retooling, with LeBron James’ departure leaving Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves to anchor the rotation after Doncic’s arrival reshaped the franchise’s timeline entirely. Every exhibition possession this October will get read for clues about how the retooled roster fits together around that pairing.
That is precisely why a five-game slate against two familiar division rivals and a Denver club that gave the Lakers trouble a year ago matters more than it should on paper. Training camp opens in late September, leaving barely two weeks between the first padded practices and the Oct. 5 tip-off in Sacramento. The preseason exists to answer lineup questions and manage minutes for anyone returning from injury, and this slate gives the coaching staff five looks at a roster still figuring out its identity before games start counting for real.
None of it will show up in a box score anyone remembers by Halloween. But after a 1-5 exhibition slog preceded a run all the way to the conference semifinals, Los Angeles has earned the benefit of the doubt heading into October.
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