Lakers Face Roster Challenges as Adou Thiero Emerges
September has arrived, and the Los Angeles Lakers are still staring at the same problem: a roster with glaring holes and almost no room to maneuver.
Jonathan Kuminga was supposed to help solve that. Instead, he’s heading to the Minnesota Timberwolves on a two-year deal, and the miss has left a noticeable dent in the Lakers’ frontcourt plans.
As Khobi Price of the California Post outlined, the situation is tight. The Lakers sit just $8.1 million below the NBA’s $209 million first-apron threshold, hard-capped for the 2026-27 season and already carrying 16 players on guaranteed contracts. The math is ugly. So are the options.
Free agency? Thin. Trade market? Even trickier, with the asset cupboard close to bare. For a franchise that still talks about contending, the margin for error is almost gone.
So the Lakers are looking inward.
Thiero Steps Into the Spotlight
If no late-summer move materializes, the organization is poised to lean heavily on internal growth, and that’s where 22-year-old forward Adou Thiero steps into the frame.
Price notes that in the wake of the failed Kuminga pursuit, Thiero is among the few young Lakers expected to see an uptick in opportunity. On paper, the comparison is obvious. Thiero checks in at 6-foot-8 and 220 pounds; Kuminga is 6-foot-7, 225. Both bring explosive athleticism and uncommon quickness for their size.
That’s where the similarities end for now.
“Kuminga is far ahead of Thiero when it comes to offensive skill and production,” Price wrote, a blunt but fair assessment of where the two are in their careers. Yet without Kuminga in purple and gold, a lane opens. Not a guaranteed rotation spot, but a pathway, as Price put it, for Thiero “to be on the fringes of the rotation.”
For a second-year forward who spent most of last season fighting injuries and grinding in the G League, that’s significant.
Raw, But Exactly What They Need
Thiero is not close to being a starting-caliber player. The Lakers know it. He knows it. What he does have is the kind of athletic profile this roster badly lacks on the wing.
Energy. Vertical pop. A willingness to fly into traffic and finish plays above the rim. That alone has stirred curiosity among Lakers fans, who have watched a veteran-heavy group struggle to keep pace with the league’s rangier, more dynamic wings.
Price pointed out that Thiero began to flash something real late last season. After lower-body injuries cost him chunks of the year and kept him tethered to the G League for most of 2025-26, he finished the campaign by carving out consistent minutes in the playoffs. It wasn’t star turn stuff, but it was meaningful: a young, long forward holding his own when the stakes climbed.
Then came July.
In summer league action in San Francisco and Las Vegas, Thiero delivered exactly the kind of tape that gets a front office thinking. Lob finishes. Put-back dunks. Activity on the glass. Defensive possessions where he stayed in front of bigger forwards and didn’t get bullied. The flashes were bright enough to build a reel, and loud enough to nudge the coaching staff’s imagination.
Price still called him “pretty raw” and emphasized there’s “plenty of development ahead of him,” but the role is clear. If the Lakers want a bigger wing who can be a lob threat, rebound with force and credibly guard size, those were the same boxes Kuminga would have been asked to check. Thiero, in outline form, fits that template.
A Gamble the Lakers May Have to Take
This is the crossroads for Los Angeles. The franchise that has long relied on star power and splashy moves is boxed in by the cap and a bloated payroll. With few picks and fewer tradable contracts, the front office may have no choice but to bet on a player like Thiero.
Players with his profile often thrive next to high-usage creators, the kind who bend defenses and spray passes to cutters and dunkers. Put a springy, 6-foot-8 wing next to a primary playmaker and the job description becomes simple: run, defend, finish.
Thiero isn’t ready to anchor lineups. He might not even be ready for 20 minutes a night. But he doesn’t have to be. He just has to give the Lakers something they don’t currently have—youthful legs on the wing, a vertical threat, a body that can battle bigger forwards without ceding ground.
The missed Kuminga signing underlined what the Lakers lack. Thiero’s emerging presence hints at how they might patch it.
The question now is whether a franchise built on certainty at the top is willing to live with the growing pains of a raw, 22-year-old forward when the season tips and every possession starts to matter.
