EL SEGUNDO — Just a few days after being announced as the Lakers’ newest sideline reporter for Spectrum SportsNet, Roqui Theus was still basking in the newfound reality of covering an organization she grew up around.
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As she stood outside UCLA Health Training Center in El Segundo – the Lakers training facility – following the Lakers’ annual media day three weeks ago – Lakers legend James Worthy, who also works as a Spectrum SportsNet Lakers analyst, made a beeline toward Theus.
Worthy put his hand on Theus’ shoulder as he walked by. His message was simple, sweet. The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer told Theus, the daughter of former NBA All-Star Reggie Theus, that he would be there in support.
Anything she needed, “Big Game James” was there to help.
That’s the full-circle world for Roqui Theus, joining the Spectrum SportsNet broadcast for the 2026-27 Lakers season after 13 years working as a broadcast journalist. Or as Roqui Theus said numerous times during an interview last week with the Southern California News Group before her sideline reporting debut on Tuesday night during the Lakers’ preseason game against the Golden State Warriors in Las Vegas, it’s all about “alignment.”
“My favorite word is alignment, and it’s just blaring at me right now,” said Roqui Theus, who will fulfill sideline duties for 37 games this season. “I feel really proud to be back in L.A., covering basketball, you know?”
Roqui Theus can quickly point to her first memories around basketball. She’d go to Staples Center alongside her father, Reggie Theus, when he worked as a broadcaster for ESPN, TNT, and for a short period of time, on the Lakers television broadcasts in the early 2000s.
“I was just going to work with my dad, and I was watching him do his thing on the court, and I didn’t know that one day I would be doing the same,” she said of her dad, who once coached the Los Angeles D-Fenders, then the Lakers’ NBA D-League team (now the Coachella Valley Lakers of the NBA G League). “Watching him take his steps in his own career, and watching him in the art of reinvention or pivoting or whatever you want to call it, he’s just been an inspiration and instrumental in how I approach my own career and in life in general.”
Family trips to NBA All-Star games – alongside her mother Elaine, younger siblings Reggie Jr. and Rhyan, and her dad – helped set a foundation of knowledge around the basketball world outside of playing basketball as a kid.
Roqui Theus recalled receiving a phone call from Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley when she was a kid, in what she calls another moment of alignment, considering she’d go on to interview O’Neal as a professional broadcaster years later.
“I recall Shaq saying, ‘Hey, you better do good in school, or I’m gonna step on you,’ or something like that,” Roqui Theus said with a laugh. “It’s just very funny things like that. You don’t even understand the magnitude as a kid, but when you’re older interviewing him on your show in Las Vegas, you’re like, ‘Wow, look at this, another full-circle moment.’”
Eventually, Roqui Theus would play college basketball for UC Irvine from 2007-2011 – where the Los Angeles native introduced herself to Kobe Bryant when he used to train at the Orange County campus.
In Irvine, Roqui Theus built an internship during her senior year alongside the athletic communications staff to build interview skills – after she noticed she didn’t see many interviews being conducted on campus.
At a university without a broadcast journalism degree offered – she said she took it upon herself to broaden her skillset. Theus also wrote an advice column for the UC Irvine’s student newspaper.
“At some point I thought, ‘I want to play in the WNBA,’” said Roqui Theus, who was a child actor growing up. “At some point I thought, ‘I want to be the next Tyra Banks.’ At some point I thought, ‘I want to be a news anchor,’ because I loved people, I loved entertaining, I loved community, and I loved writing and storytelling. All of that comes together in broadcast journalism.”
Roqui Theus would go on to work in Reno, Sacramento, San Francisco and Los Angeles at local television stations, before a prolonged stay in Las Vegas working for KLAS, a local CBS station, as a host and reporter for their lifestyle and entertainment show. Roqui Theus spent more than five years reporting in Las Vegas.
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Returning to Los Angeles in December 2024, she went national with Extra TV with freelance coverage early in 2025, interviewing celebrities – the first of which being Harrison Ford.
“If I can interview Harrison,” she joked, “I can interview (Lakers coach) JJ (Redick).”
Preparing for her new role as a sideline reporter, where she will split duties with Mike Trudell (who is entering his 19th season covering the Lakers), she shadowed a variety of Los Angeles-area reporters.
Roqui Theus said she shadowed Spectrum SportsNet LA host and reporter Kirsten Watson at a pair of Dodgers games, Spectrum SportsNet’s Nikki Kay at a Sparks game and Trudell at the Lakers’ preseason home opener last week. She also spent time shadowing the production and control room at Spectrum, hoping to best understand the efforts behind producing coverage
Being at Crypto.com Arena wasn’t new to Roqui Theus, as her life’s journey has brought her to watch basketball in Downtown L.A. more times than she can count.
But last week, arriving at L.A. Live on Thursday for the Lakers preseason game against the Sacramento Kings, was her first time being on the clock in the arena with Spectrum.
The feeling was far different.
“(Sandro Mamukelashvili) made a comment yesterday to Mike Trudell in his walk-off interview saying, ‘I’m walking around Crypto, and it’s surreal,” Roqui Theus said. “That’s how I feel.”
At T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Tuesday – in the market she used to call her permanent home – Roqui Theus will introduce herself to the Lakers faithful on television.
Las Vegas was Roqui Theus’ launching pad in her broadcasting career, she said.
It was where she found a spot between basketball and entertainment, hosting events at the NBA Summer League at UNLV, and for shoe brands such as Nike and Adidas.
“I was moderating panels with current NBA players, current WNBA players – having those conversations and just kind of making my imprint in the sports world, saying, ‘Guys, I’m still here. This is still me. I’m still a hooper, and now I can do it.’”
Once more, this time with Spectrum SportsNet, Las Vegas is where her launching pad as the Lakers sideline reporter will take place.
That, Roqui Theus said, is just more proof of the “alignment” that brought her back to Los Angeles, and eventually, covering the Lakers.
“Over the last 13 years, I knew sports were a part of my world and eventually, I could step back into it,” she said. “I never really knew that it would be the Lakers, and I never knew that this was coming, but I couldn’t think of a better way to get back on the court and be home.”
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