LOS ANGELES — Luke Kennard tilted his head toward the locker room ceiling as if to remember, scrolling through his memories in the aftermath of the Lakers’ 101-73 victory over the Phoenix Suns on Friday night after they clinched home-court advantage for the first round of the playoffs.
Searching for the answer, the Lakers’ swingman landed on a day. Kennard blurted out the details from a trip out West.
“Must have been,” Kennard said in an interview with the Southern California News Group before pausing. “I was at his camp for high school kids. It was like an elite camp out in Vegas.”
“It’s actually on my Instagram, which is funny,” Kennard added, “that picture.”
Sure enough. July 5, 2013. The first photo on Kennard’s Instagram account, the one right before Kennard dressed in a black football jersey, holding a football out wide in front of him as a junior student at Franklin High School near Dayton, Ohio, where he lettered three seasons as a right-handed quarterback (Kennard shoots a basketball left-handed).
Kennard, wearing a white polo shirt with LeBron James’ name embroidered on his shirt, is smiling wide at the LeBron James Skills Academy in Las Vegas. To Kennard’s right, with his arm hanging around the then-teenager’s shoulder is James, donning what would now be seen as a retro Florida Marlins baseball cap.
“That was the first time,” Kennard said.
That day in the heat of Nevada summers, a 17-year-old Kennard, a Division I prospect, and James, then 28, met.
Fast forward to Friday night; on Kennard’s right, a gaggle of assorted reporters had surrounded James, now 41, as they do after every game as he speaks to the media. But now, James is Kennard’s neighbor in the locker room – no longer the star that he would eventually surpass in the Ohio high school scoring record books, but his peer in purple and gold.
Kennard’s partner on the court is a hero of his youth, a player he idolized coming from Ohio roots and the namesake for his high school AAU program that James sponsored: “King James Shooting Stars.” Now Kennard’s role has evolved from off-the-bench spot shooter into becoming the Lakers’ primary ball handler following the injuries that have sidelined starters Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves for the tail end of the regular season (and likely into the playoffs).
“He’s always just been a ball player,” James said Friday. “I know a lot of people didn’t watch him throughout his upbringing, but I had the luxury of it because he actually played on my AAU team. And we played him in all different positions. And even high school, I think a little bit at Duke, they put the ball in his hands a little bit, but it kind of started to shape then.”
Kennard has appeared as arguably the league’s most-threatening 3-point shooter since he entered the NBA in 2017. Even in the 2025-26 season, when he has split time between the Atlanta Hawks and the Lakers after a trade deadline swap, Kennard leads the NBA in 3-point percentage (47.8%). Kennard is more than two percentage points more efficient than the second-place player on the list, Milwaukee Bucks forward Bobby Portis, and will secure 3-point champion recognition for the third time in his career when the regular season concludes on Sunday night.
Since the Lakers ruled Doncic and Reaves out, Kennard has become the Lakers’ secondary option outside of James, who has returned to the limelight after playing in a reduced third-in-command role. Last Saturday, Coach JJ Redick and his staff prepared Kennard for the transformation workload and dramatic shift in usage
In just his second game starting for the Lakers on Sunday against the Dallas Mavericks, Kennard recorded his first career triple-double (15 points, 16 rebounds and 11 assists) in defeat. He then churned out 17 assists over the Lakers’ next two games. On Friday against the Suns, Kennard matched his season-high with 19 points.
Before Reaves and Doncic were injured against Oklahoma City on April 2, Kennard had averaged 21.9 minutes per game. In the Lakers’ past five games, Kennard has played 31.3 minutes per game and has assumed point guard duties in the starting lineup.
Kennard called the chance to play alongside James a “special opportunity” he wouldn’t take for granted and a “full-circle moment,” especially considering the increase in two-man action that Redick has asked James and Kennard to run. James said the league shaped Kennard’s image as a shooter, building a narrative how fans view the swingman as primarily a long-range specialist.
“He’s smart as hell,” James said of Kennard. “I’m smart as hell at this game. It does seem like we’ve been playing for a while as teammates, but that’s just the knowledge of the game.”
Redick joked Thursday that Kennard has been typecast in a role with a reputation that is difficult to shed.
“I’m sure every time he checked into an AAU tournament in eighth grade, everybody’s screaming, ‘Shooter, shooter, shooter,’” Redick said. “That’s the life we have.”
Redick, like Kennard, played at Duke and reminisced over pre-draft conversations he conducted with his soon-to-be playoffs starter. Redick said he has known for a long time that Kennard flexed skill sets beyond what was obvious on the periphery, using his shooting and change of speed on the ball as a threat to make high-IQ plays.
Heading into Sunday night’s regular-season finale against the Utah Jazz (22-59) with the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference playoffs still up for grabs, the onus is on Kennard.
Added weight on Kennard’s shoulders is a reality as the Lakers, a team that lost more than half of its scoring and assists production when Doncic and Reaves went down, will begin a first-round playoff series next weekend. For Kennard, the prospects of playing alongside James remains “definitely exciting” as he finds his rhythm on the hardwood.
“It’s a big responsibility,” Kennard told SCNG. “But at the same time, knowing that teammates, coaches, and (James) trust me to make the right play and be organized and get us in those actions to find the right matchups or get the right shot; they want me to be aggressive out of everything that we do together. It brings my level of confidence up a lot.”
JAZZ AT LAKERS
When: Sunday, 5:30 p.m.
Where: Crypto.com Arena
TV/radio: Spectrum SportsNet/710 AM
