James captivates crowd in his Los Angeles Lakers debut

SAN DIEGO — LeBron James rubbed his hands in chalk powder at the scorer’s table, yelled “Yes!” to ecstatic fans in the first few rows and the Los Angeles Lakers’ new era was underway.

Playing in the same arena where Magic Johnson made his regular-season debut for Los Angeles 39 years ago, James captivated the crowd from the start of the Lakers’ exhibition opener Sunday night, a 124-107 loss to the Denver Nuggets.

The opening tip came James’ way and he tapped it to fellow newcomer Rajon Rondo, who threw an alley-oop pass to JaVale McGee for the game’s first score.

James missed his first shot, a turnaround fadeaway, but then made a no-look bounce pass from about 27 feet out to Brandon Ingram for a dunk. A minute later, James hit a long 3pointer.

He finished with nine points, three rebounds and four assists in just more than 15 minutes.

Walton said James and Rondo “were great. Their commitment to pushing it, defensively. I thought the first group as a whole played really well, to start. Both groups were fouling way too much. They hit 30-some free throws. It’s going to be tough to win a game like that. But there’s some new rules we have to get adjusted to from this summer. The first group I thought played really well, obviously being led by the two of them out there.”

The Lakers’ regularseason opener is Oct. 18 at Portland. Their home opener is two nights later against Houston.