Camp Lakers is not in Los Angeles, and the venue moves. The 2026 edition was at the AIM Sportsplex in Seal Beach. When our boys went in July 2024 the venue changed before the camp started and they played at The MAP Sports Facility in Garden Grove instead. Both are in Orange County, roughly forty minutes south of downtown.
It costs $500 per session and takes children aged 10 to 15. Sessions run in July and campers are grouped by age and skill rather than thrown in together.
Be careful with the hours, because they have changed enormously. The 2026 edition runs mornings only, 9am to 1pm, three days. When our boys went in 2024 we paid $750 each for a full week: 9am to 5pm Monday to Thursday, and 9am to 3pm on the Friday.
What you get for the money: coaching from the Lakers organisation’s own staff, a reversible Camp Lakers jersey and shorts, a backpack and swag bag, a snack and a lunch to-go, and a photo with an NBA Championship trophy. All proceeds go to the Los Angeles Lakers Youth Foundation.
What you do not get: a fitness-camp intensity, or an appearance from the current roster. This is a well-run basketball camp with a Lakers badge on it, not a meeting with the team.
Would we do it again, flying in from Barcelona? Yes, for sure we will repeat it.
⚠️ A note on when we went, and how much has changed since. Our boys attended from 15 to 19 July 2024 at The MAP Sports Facility in Garden Grove, for a full week of long days. Two things have changed since: the venue and the format. The 2025 and 2026 editions ran as three-day, mornings-only sessions at the AIM Sportsplex in Seal Beach. What this review says about the coaching, the staff and the atmosphere still stands. The venue, the hours and the price do not — check all three before you book anything.
What Camp Lakers actually is
Camp Lakers is the Los Angeles Lakers’ own youth basketball camp, presented by UCLA Health. It is run by the Lakers organisation and its staff, with support from the Positive Coaching Alliance, and all the proceeds go to the Los Angeles Lakers Youth Foundation.
That last part matters more than it sounds. This is a community programme that happens to carry one of the most famous badges in sport, not a commercial camp that has licensed a logo. It shapes the tone of the whole week — the coaching is about fundamentals and behaviour, not about producing highlight reels.
Registration is through the Lakers’ own community page on nba.com. Places for the summer usually open in spring, and the sessions are small enough that they do fill.
We ran out fast, as we were checking for the submitting form every day during the spring months. I think that in less than 2 days the camp was complete.
Where it is, and how to get there
The venue is not fixed, and ours changed before the camp began.
| Venue | Address | |
|---|---|---|
| What we were told, then what we got in July 2024 | The MAP Sports Facility | 12552 Western Ave, Garden Grove, CA 92841 |
| 2026 edition | AIM Sportsplex | 1718 Apollo Ct, Seal Beach, CA 90740 |
This is the single most important practical thing in this article. We had already booked flights and a hotel when the location moved. It worked out — Garden Grove and Westminster are neighbouring towns and our hotel was a short ride away either way — but if you are flying in from another continent, do not book accommodation around a venue you have not had confirmed in writing.
And the thing almost every parent gets wrong: the camp is called the Los Angeles Lakers camp, but it is not held in Los Angeles. Both venues are in Orange County, roughly forty minutes south of downtown depending entirely on what the 405 is doing that morning. If you are booking flights and a hotel around this camp, book them for Orange County, not for Los Angeles.
The MAP Sports Facility is a large indoor complex on Western Avenue in Garden Grove — around 65,000 square feet of maple court space, with proper seating for spectators.
We did not hire a car. We got to the sportsplex every morning by Uber and Lyft from our hotel in Westminster, about twenty minutes away, and the ground transport for the entire fifteen-night trip came to €600. If you have been told you cannot do Los Angeles without a car, that is not true, and it is certainly not true of this camp.
What it costs, and what that gets you
$500 per session today. We paid $750 per child in 2024 — and we got a great deal more camp for it.
| Days | Hours | Court time | Price per child | Per hour | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 2024 — what we paid | 5 | 9–5 Mon–Thu, 9–3 Fri | 38 hours | $750 | $19.74 |
| 2026 — current | 3 | 9–1, Tue–Thu | 12 hours | $500 | $41.67 |
Read that table twice. The headline price has come down by a third, but the contact time has been cut by about two thirds — and the cost per hour on court has more than doubled.
That is not a criticism, it is information. A three-day morning camp is a different product from a five-day full-time week, and a parent comparing this review against today’s registration page deserves to know why the numbers do not line up. If you are deciding whether $500 is worth it, the question is whether twelve hours is worth it — not whether the week we describe below is.
It is a fundraiser for the Lakers Youth Foundation as well as a camp, which is part of why it is priced the way it is.
What is included:
| Coaching | Lakers organisation staff, working on fundamentals through drills, games and individual and team competitions |
| Kit | A reversible Camp Lakers jersey and shorts |
| Bag | A Lakers backpack and a swag bag |
| Food | A snack, and a lunch to-go |
| The photo | A picture with an NBA Championship trophy |
A note for anyone budgeting the whole trip: the camp fee is the smallest number in it. Our two weeks in Los Angeles came to €8,689 for four of us, and the camp was 16% of that. The flights alone were two and a half times what we paid for both children’s places. It is worth working out the whole figure before you commit rather than the camp fee alone.
Prices are set each year. Check the current figure on the Lakers’ registration page before you budget — do not trust a blog post for a number that moves annually, including this one.
Ages, and how the groups work
Camp Lakers takes children aged 10 to 15.
Campers are grouped by both age and skill level, which is the detail that reassures most parents. A ten-year-old who has played for one season is not put on court against a fifteen-year-old who plays year-round.
If your child is nine, they are too young, and it is worth waiting rather than trying to argue the exception — the whole group dynamic is built around that band.
A day at Camp Lakers
In 2024 this was a full-time week. Our boys were on court 9am to 5pm from Monday to Thursday, and 9am to 3pm on the Friday — thirty-eight hours in five days.
The 2026 edition is 9am to 1pm across three mornings. If you are reading this to plan a current camp week, that is your day; if you are reading it to understand what the camp is like, read on, because the coaching is the same.
Each morning began with a presentation that parents were welcome to attend. That is worth knowing before you plan: you are not simply dropping a child at a door. There is a proper start to the day that you can be part of.
The coaching itself works through fundamentals — drills, games, and both individual and team competitions.
The championship ring and the trophy
The moment our boys still talk about had nothing to do with a drill.
At one point during the week the campers got to hold a real NBA Championship ring and have their photo taken with an actual championship trophy.
What parents can and cannot watch
This is a question every parent asks and the answer is specific.
You are welcome at the presentation that opens each morning. You are also welcome back at the end of the day — about half an hour before the session finishes — to watch the last of it.
The rest of the session is for the children. You drop off, and you come back at the end.
And in our year that meant whole days. Nine to five, Monday to Thursday, and nine to three on the Friday. Four full free days and one long morning, in a town we did not know — which is either a gift or a problem depending entirely on how well you have planned it. On a 2026 three-morning session you get roughly three hours instead, which changes what is realistically reachable. Both versions are covered below.
Doing this from Europe
We flew from Barcelona. And due to the difference in hours, we decided to come few days earlier, exactly we came 2 nights prior to the camp to start. And kids just adjusted to the correct time for the camp.
Both Damian and Marc study English, Damian can speak in English and for him wasn’t an issue, Marc, still has a beginner level, and he was lucky enough as in his group were kids who spoke Spanish, and were helping him with translations.
One practical point that has changed since we went: we flew Barcelona to Los Angeles direct with LEVEL, and LEVEL stopped operating that route on 25 October 2026. A European family flying in for this camp now connects. Worth factoring into both the budget and the jet lag.
Where to stay, eat and go while your child is at camp
This is the part no official page will tell you, and it is the reason we ended up writing half a dozen other articles about this corner of Orange County. Everything below is within about fifteen to forty minutes of either venue.
How much of it you can do depends on which version of the camp you are on. With our 2024 full days we could drive to Laguna and back and still be early for pick-up. On a three-hour morning session, stay close — Seal Beach itself, or the Whole Foods and a coffee.
Where we stayed
We stayed at the Best Western Westminster Inn, about 5.6 miles from the sportsplex, at €114.76 a night with breakfast for four included. It was not the closest option — the Hampton Inn & Suites Seal Beach is under a mile away — but it was considerably cheaper, and it had free parking, a pool and a guest laundry, which after five days of basketball kit is not a small thing.
Where to eat
- The Whole Foods hot bar in Long Beach — the 2nd & PCH store, about ten minutes away. Fill a container, pay by weight, everyone picks their own. For a hungry eleven-year-old straight off a court it is the easiest meal of the day.
- In-N-Out in Westminster — the obvious one, and worth doing once.
- Little Saigon — Westminster is the centre of the largest Vietnamese community outside Vietnam, and there is extraordinary food there. It is ten minutes from the camp and we very nearly missed it.
Internal links:
- our Seal Beach day trip
- our Westminster and Little Saigon guide
- the In-N-Out in Westminster
- our Laguna Beach day trip
- Newport Beach and Balboa Island
What to do while they are on court
| Roughly | Works on a 3-hour morning? | Works on a full day? | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seal Beach — pier, beach, coffee | Minutes from the AIM Sportsplex | ✅ | ✅ |
| Whole Foods at 2nd & PCH / Little Saigon | ~10 minutes | ✅ | ✅ |
| Newport Beach and Balboa Island | ~25 minutes | Tight | ✅ |
| Laguna Beach | ~40 minutes | ❌ | ✅ — this is what we did |
| The beaches round-up | — | — | ✅ |
Frequently asked questions about Camp Lakers
Where is the Los Angeles Lakers camp for kids held?
It moves, so confirm it before you book anything. The 2026 edition was held at the AIM Sportsplex, 1718 Apollo Ct, Seal Beach, California. When our boys attended in July 2024 the venue changed before the camp started and they played at The MAP Sports Facility, 12552 Western Ave, Garden Grove. Both are in Orange County rather than in Los Angeles itself, roughly forty minutes south of downtown depending on traffic.
How much does Camp Lakers cost?
Five hundred dollars per session in 2026. We paid seven hundred and fifty dollars per child in July 2024, when the camp ran five days and far longer hours: about thirty-eight hours of court time then against roughly twelve now. All proceeds go to the Los Angeles Lakers Youth Foundation. Check the current price on the Lakers’ own registration page before you book, because it is set each year.
What ages can attend Camp Lakers?
Ten to fifteen. Campers are grouped by both age and skill level, so a ten-year-old is not put on court against a fifteen-year-old.
When does Camp Lakers run?
In July, but the format has changed a great deal. In 2024 our boys did a full week: 9am to 5pm Monday to Thursday and 9am to 3pm on the Friday. The 2026 edition ran as three separate sessions on 7 to 9 July, 14 to 16 July and 21 to 23 July, Tuesday to Thursday, from 9am to 1pm. Check the current dates and hours rather than assuming.
What do campers get at Camp Lakers?
A reversible Camp Lakers jersey and shorts, a Lakers backpack and swag bag, and a photo with an NBA Championship trophy. A snack and a lunch to-go were provided as well. Our children also got to hold a real championship ring.
Can parents watch Camp Lakers?
Partly. Parents are welcome at the presentation that opens each morning, and can come back about half an hour before the session finishes. The rest of the day is for the children, which in our 2024 week meant we had whole days free rather than a spare morning.
Is Camp Lakers suitable for children visiting from abroad?
Yes. Our boys travelled from Barcelona and the camp made no difficulty of it. The harder part is the logistics around it: jet lag before a 9am start, and getting two children to Seal Beach by nine every morning. We did the whole trip without hiring a car, on Uber, Lyft and public transport, from a hotel about twenty minutes away.
Do campers meet Lakers players at Camp Lakers?
Do not book it expecting to meet the current roster. The camp is run by the Lakers organisation and its staff, and the memorable moments in our week came from the coaching and the trophy, not from a player appearance.
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