It's schedule day! Among the most hyped and least consequential days of the NBA summer, one here to remind us all how much we want the games to start. 

But while it's easy to overstate the importance of schedule day, it does set the table for the upcoming season, and can either seem to raise roadblocks to a successful season or, at least on paper, set more favorable terms for the 82-game campaign. To that end, the schedule for the Lakers does have a couple nice features (including a reduction in the number of back-to-backs) and notifications about happy events (the jersey retirement for Michael Cooper). It demonstrates the incredible difficulty baked into the Western Conference because there just aren't very many stretches where you look at the calendar and say, "this is an easy stretch." 

Why? Because there are only so many games in a chunk where you can avoid the West. 

So how do things shape up? What does the end of the season look like, if the team needs to finish in a sprint, as it did over the last couple of seasons? How about the first 15 games? Do the Lakers have a decent shot of getting off to the type of start that would preclude a helter skelter finish? 

Meanwhile, have the Lakers squandered the final years of LeBron's career? That's a question central to a recent column in The Ringer. 

HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky

SEGMENT 1: The Lakers have a schedule! Highlights and lowlights. 

SEGMENT 2: Can the Lakers get off to a fast start, finally? 

SEGMENT 3: Have the Lakers squandered the end of LeBron's career? 

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