Exclusive | Lakers Cameron Carr stays present with summer league opportunity: Learn as much as I can
SAN FRANCISCO — Cameron Carr is present. With the adjustment process that comes with being the Lakers’ first-round pick in the 2026 NBA Draft.With his summer league teammates.
With the tasks at hand.So present that he told The California Post he wasn’t on social media when it was revealed June 29 that LeBron James wasn’t going to return to the Lakers for his 24th NBA season after eight seasons with the franchise. And because he’s as present as he is, he didn’t think too much about the news despite expressing excitement about the idea of playing alongside James, as well as Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves, during his June 26 media availability.“In all honesty, [I] was probably thinking more about how this was going to go,” Carr told the Post.“Me and my [summer league] teammates, I wasn’t really caught up in the moment of everything going on.
Just to be present and be engaged with what’s going on, especially with this team.Got a lot of older guys, things can pass by really fast.
And so I was just trying to be in the moment and learn as much as I can and don’t get taken away from outside distractions of what’s going on.”What’s going on now for Carr is his ongoing acclimation from college basketball player to NBA prospect to NBA player, with him officially becoming a Laker on Thursday after signing his four-year, $16.8 million rookie scale contract. He took another step in the process by making his summer league debut in the Lakers’ California Classic loss to the Warriors on Friday.“It’s really just been trying to be a sponge, soak as much as I can in,” Carr told the Post of his approach.“Just learn.
I feel like this team that I got around me right now, they’ve got a lot of vets that I can learn from, ask questions to.So just trying to catch up and [not] look like a rookie, stand out.
That’s been my emphasis.”The 6-foot-5 Carr stood out in his first summer league game, scoring a game-high-tying 19 points on 7-of-15 shoo...