Adou Thiero didn’t just show up for the Lakers’ Las Vegas Summer League opener. He made a loud, unmistakable argument.
Los Angeles rolled past the Oklahoma City Thunder 96-84 on Friday night at Thomas & Mack Center, and the biggest reason was a 20-point burst from the second-year forward. Thiero finished with 20 points on 8-for-14 shooting, plus four rebounds, four assists, three steals and two blocks. He did it without a turnover in 30 minutes and posted a team-best plus-13.
The game had a turning point in the third quarter, when the Lakers turned a 10-point halftime lead into a 33-23 runaway period. Thiero capped it with a buzzer-beater off the glass, the kind of finishing touch that matched the rest of his night. He was everywhere, and he never looked out of control.
That was the real takeaway. Thiero’s athleticism has never been in doubt, and Friday had the highlights to prove it - four dunks, including transition lobs and a breakaway windmill dunk in the second quarter that set the building off.
What stood out just as much was how he handled the game. Lakers Summer League coach Ty Abbott said afterward that Thiero attacked what the defense gave him, read Oklahoma City’s help in the paint and made the right pass when it was there.
That kind of decision-making is what the Lakers want to see. The front office has spent the past two weeks searching for a defensive wing on the open market, and Thiero spent Friday showing that maybe the answer is already on the roster.
“We need a point-of-attack, on-ball defender,” Thiero said, explaining the message he has heard from head coach JJ Redick.
That fits the current shape of the roster. LeBron James left in free agency and Rui Hachimura signed with the Clippers, leaving a major wing opening. The Lakers have also been pursuing Jonathan Kuminga as a possible answer, and Dave McMenamin reported in ESPN’s league-wide free agency roundup that the team has pitched Kuminga on the Malik Monk model - take less now, cash in later - though getting him to accept that kind of pay cut won’t be easy.
Thiero, meanwhile, is already in the building on a second-round deal.
None of this means one strong summer league game locks in a rotation spot. But it does mean the conversation around the Lakers’ final roster spots has changed. A Lakers source told ESPN those spots “will be critical” for next season, and NBC Sports made the same point in its postgame analysis, noting that with James and Hachimura gone, Thiero has a real opening in Redick’s rotation.
His path to this point has not been smooth. Thiero missed the Lakers’ California Classic finale with a right wrist injury, and there was no sign of that issue lingering on Friday.
He also spent much of last season dealing with injuries, recovering from left knee surgery before debuting in mid-November and later spraining his MCL in late December. Even so, he found his way into the playoff rotation at times during the Lakers’ run to the second round.
After the game, Thiero said, “I feel like I was capable of doing this,” pointing to the comfort he built during a G League stint last season. In 10 appearances there, he averaged 15.3 points per game and shot 60.4 percent from the field.
Thiero wasn’t the only young Laker who impressed. Rookie Cameron Carr, the No. 24 overall pick in June’s draft, scored 18 points on 7-for-13 shooting and added two blocks.
He had been limited by a toe issue in the previous game, so his performance cleared another health question. Anton Watson added 15 points, and Arthur Kaluma scored 18 off the bench while going 5-for-5 from the field.
There are still obvious holes in Thiero’s game. He missed all five of his 3-point attempts against Oklahoma City and is 0-for-8 from deep through three summer appearances. That matters, because teams will keep crowding the paint until the jumper forces them to think twice.
Still, the shape of the performance is what matters most. Thiero played fast without playing rushed, and for a Lakers team still sorting out its wing picture, that was enough to make Friday feel bigger than a typical summer league opener.
The Lakers are back at it Saturday against the Mavericks at 7 p.m. PST on ESPN, and every game from here to training camp keeps feeding the same question: who fills the wing minutes? After Friday, Thiero is very much in that conversation.
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