5 Things: Lakers Sweep Kings and a Trade

After the Lakers finished the season sweep the Lakers made a choice few around here believed they would make: a trade. While the win was important (vaulting us into 5th place at 18-13) the trade has the potential to redefine the Lakers defense, especially with injury concerns to Vanderbilt, Wood, Hayes, Vincent, and Reddish. All in all, a big day in Laker Land!

1. The win over the Kings was born of a solid mix of OK defense and timely shot-making. The Kings had no answer for AD in the paint as he put Sabonis in foul trouble and bullied his way to 36 points (11-13 from the free throw line) and along with Reaves applied the right pressure to Sacramento’s defense to complete the sweep. Reaves and AD have a nice chemistry on the floor and, in general, Austin has distinguished himself as a capable (though not elite) offense initiator.
2. Rui Hachimura should be considered as untouchable as Reaves. The dude just makes shots off the pass. He’s hitting 47.7% of his catch and shoot threes and he’s leading the Lakers in three point efficiency by a country mile at 45.2%. The next closest player is Dalton Knecht at 36.7%. Rui has become the ultimate release valve and is doing it while playing a variety of roles on defense. Small ball center? Rui’s got you covered. He’s averaging a steal/game for the first time in his career and if he upped his rebounding we’d really have something cooking at the 3 spot.
3. Dalton Knecht re-emerging from his slump. After a few games of virtually vanishing from the offense and seeing his playing time decrease Dalton rediscovered his shooting tough on Christmas and carried it over to the game last night. Dalton has a solid shot at winning ROY and needs to keep impacting winning like he has. He’s not afraid of banging on defense, he’s a decent rebounder and he cuts well off the ball to open up his inside game. We need all of those things on a more consistent basis.
4. The Trade. Nobody saw it coming, in fact I thought Memphis had locked up DFS yesterday as it sounded like it was a done deal. As always the NBA keeps one on their toes. The trade for Dorian Finney-Smith and Shake Milton was for DLO, Max Lewis and 3 second round draft picks. One has to imagine that Memphis balked at the inclusion of a FRP or was concerned that DFS would either not pick up his player option and walk or that he would and mess up some potential salary cap plans. Regardless the Lakers made the right move. Adding DFS and Milton helps two areas of need, especially with Vincent being out with an injury mid-game last night. DFS allows us to move one of Hachimura or Christie to the bench and augment our shooting and defense while doing it. My personal preference would be to move Max but I feel like Hachimura may end up the fall guy. However it goes this was a solid move by the front office if for no other reason than we made a move that helps preserve the cap space DLO would have cost us had he simply moved on as an UFA.
5. Speaking of DLO. I want to thank him for his contributions. Coming over as the centerpiece to the Westbrook deal after everything that went down when he was a Laker there were a lot of questions. I think he answered almost all of them, although not all to the liking of the fans. Gone was the immature kid posting Insta videos of his teammates without them knowing and instead we got a quality player on the floor and in the locker room. Helping us get to the western conference finals that season was an awesome journey for him to have taken. It’s unfortunate that Coach Reddick didn’t unlock DLO’s game as hoped for and it felt to me like Russell took a small step back this season and so hopefully he can showcase his talent in Brooklyn and get himself a solid contract this summer. D’Angelo Russell, thanks for everything.