Adou Thiero is off the Lakers’ injury report for Friday night’s game against Portland. Dan Woike posted that with Sandro Mamukelashvili questionable with an illness, Thiero “could be in position to make his season debut.” The left knee swelling that has kept him out since the preseason is, for now, behind him.
Good. Now send him to Coachella Valley. Thiero is 22, he played 149 regular-season minutes as a rookie and 34 more in the playoffs, and the same left knee has taken two Octobers from him. What he needs is 25 minutes a night, and the Lakers can’t give him that. Their G League team can, starting while the big club spends next week on the road.
149 Minutes, Mostly in Blowouts
Here’s Thiero’s rookie season, per his Basketball Reference game log. He sat out the first 13 games, made his debut in Milwaukee on Nov. 15, 2025, and then was inactive for 21 straight games from Jan. 2 to Feb. 9. He finished with 25 appearances, 149 minutes, 6.0 minutes a game and 1.9 points.
He played 12 minutes or more four times. The Lakers lost by 21 in Boston, by 24 in Phoenix and by 36 to Oklahoma City in those games, and beat Utah by 24 in the season finale. That last one was his best night: 12 minutes, 4-for-4 from the field. The playoffs looked the same. He played six games and 34 minutes, and his only stretch longer than seven minutes was 13 minutes in a 23-point loss at home to Oklahoma City.
Blame the roster for that. A second-round pick on a team trying to win gets those minutes, and this season’s 7-2 team won’t hand out more of them. It’s also why I don’t think anyone, including the Lakers, knows yet what he is.
The Knee Problem
Khobi Price of the California Post reported Thursday that this fall’s swelling is in the same left knee Thiero had surgery on in spring 2025. Swelling in that knee also cost him last season’s preseason and those first 13 games, per Heavy’s Alder Almo. Before it flared up this fall, he played the first three preseason games and averaged 5.3 points, 3.7 rebounds and 1.3 steals in 18.4 minutes.
He looked like he belonged in that stretch. After the ugly preseason loss at Golden State on Oct. 6, the game I wrote about when Redick called the Lakers’ first half unacceptable, Redick said “Adou (Thiero) and Jake (LaRavia) particularly were really good in that stretch,” per ClutchPoints. Then the knee swelled and he spent the first nine games of the regular season watching.
The ramp back has already run through the G League. The Lakers assigned him to Coachella Valley for a practice on Wednesday and recalled him Thursday. “That was the plan just to get him a live practice today and then he’ll be back with us,” Redick said, per Price. Before Monday’s win over Miami, Redick had said Thiero had “some live exposures” and was “trending in the right direction,” per Heavy’s Alder Almo.
A live practice is a start. A month of games is the next step.
There’s No Room on the Wing
Look at who’s ahead of him. Through nine games, per Basketball Reference, Quentin Grimes is playing 26.1 minutes a night, Ziaire Williams 25.3, Matisse Thybulle 24.3 and Jake LaRavia 23.4. Collin Sexton gets another 17.3 as the bench guard. That’s four perimeter players at 23 minutes or more on a team that’s won seven of nine, and none of them is playing badly enough to lose the job.
RotoWire’s Thursday note says Thiero isn’t expected to have a rotation role early in the season. I agree, and that’s the problem. If he stays with the Lakers, his season looks like last season: a few minutes at the end of blowouts and a lot of nights in a suit.
The obvious objection is Friday. Mamukelashvili has been the backup center all season at 23.4 minutes a game, and if he can’t go, somebody has to soak up those minutes. Thiero is 6-foot-7 and 220 pounds. Kevon Looney is the answer to that problem. I argued in October that Looney, not Mamukelashvili, should back up Walker Kessler, because he does a center’s work on the glass. He has played 5.8 minutes a game in five appearances. Friday is his night, with Jarred Vanderbilt behind him. Thiero can play a few minutes if the game gets out of hand.
What He Did in the G League
Thiero has more G League minutes than NBA minutes already. Last season with South Bay, he played three Tip-Off Tournament games, seven regular-season games and two playoff games, about 260 minutes in all, per his G League page on Basketball Reference. He started all seven regular-season games and averaged 15.4 points on 62.5% shooting with 4.9 rebounds.
He also made 9 of 14 threes in those seven games. I wouldn’t build anything on 14 shots. He shot 25.6% from three in his last college season at Arkansas, per Basketball Reference, and 57.9% from the line in that G League stretch. The jumper is the thing that decides whether he’s a rotation player, and it’s the thing he can only fix by shooting it in games.
That’s why I like the timing. After Portland, the Lakers play at Detroit on Sunday, at Atlanta on Monday, at Milwaukee on Wednesday and at Phoenix on Nov. 15, per ESPN’s schedule. They don’t play at home again until Charlotte on Nov. 17. Thiero can spend that stretch playing real minutes for Coachella Valley instead of flying around the country to sit. Bronny James and Cameron Carr are already down there; I made the case for both in Bronny’s assignment piece and Carr’s in October.
What the Lakers Have Riding on It
Thiero is making $2,150,917 this season, and his $2,525,901 salary for 2027-28 is a team option, per Basketball Reference’s Lakers contract page. That option is cheap, and the Lakers will want a real answer before they pick it up. Garbage time won’t give them one.
So play him Friday if the game gets away from somebody. Then put him in Palm Desert, give him the ball and let him play through a knee that’s finally quiet. When a wing gets hurt in December, and on this roster one will, the Lakers should be recalling a player who’s had a month of games, not one who’s had a month of practices.