The NBA's dead month finally got a calendar. The 2026-27 season previews started rolling this morning, one team profile every weekday through Sept. 18, which is the league's traditional way of announcing that summer is over even though nobody has played a possession in months.
Phoenix drew the first slot. That is a choice, and an interesting one, because the Suns have spent the last several offseasons being the most rearranged furniture in the sport. Alongside the team-by-team rollout came the annual panel forecast: which clubs surprise, which disappoint, and, my favorite question on the whole list, which star requests a trade next. That question tells you more about where the league's head is at than any of the answers do. Player movement is no longer the offseason's side dish. It is the entire menu, and everybody now writes previews with one eye on the exit door.
But the loudest NBA story on this particular morning isn't a preview at all. It's a filing. Jeanie Buss went to Los Angeles Superior Court with a petition challenging the legality of her siblings' vote to sell the family's remaining Lakers shares. That's the extent of what's been made public so far, and I'm not going to pretend I've read the petition. What I can tell you is the weight of it.
checked the almanac: jerry buss bought the lakers in 1979. the family has been arguing about, running, and defining that franchise ever since. this is the last chapter of a 47-year ownership story being written by a judge.
What comes next is a split screen. The preview machine grinds forward, a team a day, through the middle of September, filling the last quiet stretch before camps. The Buss matter goes at courtroom speed, which is to say slowly and in public, and it will not care at all about anyone's content calendar. Two very different clocks, both running.
I'm watching whether the Lakers' profile in this preview series has anything to say about ownership when its turn comes up, or whether it stops politely at the roster. That silence, or lack of it, would tell you plenty.