The new look starting five raised modern NBA eyebrows, and generally didn’t overwhelm with a -1 PER in a whopping ten minutes, but the end result was a much needed win.
1) DLo to the bench. Didn’t see this coming and would actually much prefer Taurean Prince getting a reduced role. Just don’t see his play justifying his role. This also basically hurts what trade value the Lakers’ best trade chip has. To his credit Russell handled it all like a pro so that’s a positive.
2) LeBron amazes on cusp of 39th birthday. I ran outta superlatives last season. This dude is killing it and if our overall record was better he’d be in the MVP convo. It’s flat out ridiculous what The King is doing at this stage of his career.
3) Switch Everything works better than the new starting five. The key was playing one of Vando, Cam with Rui or LeBron all game. That coupled with AD and decent D from what guards can still play was enough to stymie the Thunder for most of the game.
4) Rui finding his groove. While we all knew that Rui wouldn’t shoot like he did in the playoffs few saw a full regression to his Wizard days in terms of efficiency. That trend seems to be changing and Rui had one of his best games of the season at just the right time.
5) Sounds like Gabe’s knee is kinda toast. With the news that Vincent is considering a surgical procedure to try and fix his knee Laker fans should probably refrain from including him in trades. More likely would be for the Lakers to go the Knicks route and inquire about a DPE as this feels increasingly like Kendrick Nunn 2.0. Regardless it’s hard to see a team taking on this and 2 more years of GV’s deal for any player of impact. Hope he can get that knee right, otherwise we’ll be looking at a cap gap in terms of talent. Wish we had just kept Dennis…
What I like best about the new lineup is its ability to switch everything. I’ve long advocated the Lakers running switchable lineups. It’s better to defend against threes and keeps players from getting into the paint, which is a better fit for the drop coverage our bigs play.
Of course, the problem is you can make it easier for teams to iso on your weak defenders if you switch everything, which is why you don’t want DLo or Austin in the starting lineup. I actually like Reaves and Rui as the bench scorers. And for now, DLo. They give the bench real firepower.
Where do you go to fix add more shooting and playmaking to a James/Reddish/Prince/Vanderbilt/Davis starting lineup?
Lauri Markkanen, Daniel Gafford, Kelly Olynyk, Pascal Siakam, Bogdan Bogdanovic would be great fits as they would allow the Laker to play two bigs and have a second big to cover when AD rested.
They would replace Vando at the 4 in those scenarios. That’s a direction I think makes sense despite this being a guard and wing driven league.
Zach LaVine replacing Cam Reddish in the starting lineup does work as well from a switchability standpoint. If Zach would work hard on D, it could work. He’d add athleticism to back court and shooting to offense.
Still prefer to split that money into 2 or 3 players for more versatility on and off the court.
The Menace gave ya energy for sure.
Nothing feels good like Lakers clicking and suffocating an opponent. Great win!!