Lakers Need To Go Big In Playoffs With Vanderbilt Replacing Reaves

The Lakers can fix their broken point-of-attack defense without hurting their top-5 offense by going big and positionless and starting 6′ 10″ Jarred Vanderbilt at shooting guard and moving Austin Reaves to 6th man.

Right how, the #9 Lakers are essentially locked in a battle with the #10 Golden State Warriors for the second Play-In game. The Lakers are 3 games behind the #8 Phoenix Suns and 3 games ahead of #11 Houston Rockets.
With 13 games to go, the Lakers would prefer to only have to win one game to make the playoffs rather than two but their focus right now is more on getting fully healthy, fixing their defense, and playing well than moving up.

The Lakers’ acceptance that they’d need to win two Play-In games to make the playoffs could quickly change if the Mavs, Suns, and/or Kings stumble. But the Lakers are confident. They just need to be playing their best to win.
For now, the Lakers don’t care who they have to play or whom they have to go through. They’re confident, if they’re finally healthy and playing their best basketball, they have a chance to win another NBA championship.

While the Lakers will need to be more consistent to have even a puncher’s chance at winning their 18th NBA championship, there’s no doubt they’re the team nobody wants to meet in the Play-In Tournament or Playoffs.
Not with LeBron James and Anthony Davis healthy and thriving, the Lakers suddenly transformed into a top-10 3-point shooting team, and their elite roster depth and talent finally getting healthy and close to returning.

So, assuming Vando is healthy for the playoffs, let’s take a look at what going big and positionless and swapping him for Austin Reaves does for the Lakers’ starting lineup and rotation and why it’s their best possible move.

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Why Not Vanderbilt for Hachimura

The problem with starting Jarred Vanderbilt for Rui Hachimura is it still leaves the Lakers with two starting guards in D’Angelo Russell and Austin Reaves who are poor defenders and does not add needed size to roster.

The fact that Vando will most likely defend the other team’s top scorer, most likely a guard or wing, further exacerbates the Lakers’ team defense as it logically forces Russell or Reaves to have to defend a bigger forward.
Since Vando will usually defend guards or wings, it makes sense for him to replace one of the Lakers two offense-first guards. With Russell taking over as the team’s third best player, it’s time for Reaves to come off the bench.

Reaves has already had fewer shots and touches as a starter because of the focus on Russell and moving him to the bench to become the team’s sixth man would take better advantage of his scoring and playmaking skills.
While Vando is not the offensive player Reaves is, his point-of-attack defense and his size, physicality, and rebounding should dramatically help the Lakers’ starting lineup be more balanced and better able to match up.

Finally, some players should start and some shouldn’t. Frankly, Reaves is a far better choice to move to the bench than Hachimura because he could end up playing better whereas Rui clearly seem to play better as a starter.
There’s also the issue of team size. The Lakers need to stay big as possible against teams like Denver and Boston, where they need a starting lineup of 6′ 5″ Russell, 6″ 10″ Vanderbilt, 6′ 8″ Hachimura, 6′ 8″ James, and 6′ 10″ Davis.

The Lakers’ optimum solution to upgrade their perimeter defense, size and physicality, and control of the boards is to move Austin Reaves to the bench to be sixth man and start Jarred Vanderbilt at two guard for the playoffs.

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Vanderbilt Playing Shooting Guard

In today’s positionless NBA, players can play any position they can defend. Because he will defend guards and wings most of the time, the Lakers should start Vanderbilt at shooting guard and convert Reaves to sixth man.

Lakers replacing Reaves with Vanderbilt not only swaps an offense-first player for defense-first player but also exchanges a 6′ 5″ player for a 6′ 10″ player, which enables the Lakers to better matchup against bigger teams.
Adding an elite point-of-attack defender and bigger, longer, more physical rebounder in Jarred Vanderbilt dramatically adds needed defense and size and returns offense-defense balance to the Lakers’ starting lineup.

Before getting injured back in early February, Vando was playing the best basketball of his career. Despite troubling rumors, he’s expected to be fully healthy and ready to return to the court before the end of regular season. Hopefully, Jarred will get a chance to play in a few games before the end of the season so he can get back into playing condition and be ready to have a major impact as the Lakers’ top point-of-attack perimeter defender.

Starting at shooting guard, Jarred Vanderbilt should have a clear cut edge in size, length, and athleticism over whomever he matches up against playing shooting guard. Those advantages should help him excel at the position.
While shooting is not his strength, Vando’s size and athleticism should give him a big offensive advantage over the smaller, less physical players he may find himself matched up against. Vando’s offense becomes a plus.

Finally, the Lakers starting lineup for the playoffs of Russell, Vanderbilt, Hachimura, James, and Davis should finally give them enough size and physicality to match up against the world champion Denver Nuggets.

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Bench Scoring & Playmaking

Right now, the Los Angeles Lakers’ have one of the worst benches in the league. Their 29.8 bench points per game ranks 29 out of 30 and their 6.8 bench assists per game 26 out of 30 in the league for the current season.

By moving Austin Reaves from starting shooting guard to backup shooting guard and hopefully getting back injured players like Cam Reddish and Christian Wood, L.A. should see much better scoring and playmaking. Austin Reaves’ presence alone should add 10 points and 5 assists to the Lakers’ bench points and assists, which would elevate the Lakers from being bottom-5 in bench points and assists to top-10 in that category.

Getting Christian Wood back from arthroscopic surgery on his knee in time for the playoffs will be critical to the Lakers being able to continue to roll out big lineups off the bench. Lakers need both Wood and Hayes to excel.
Spencer Dinwiddie will get the rest of the bench backcourt minutes next to Austin Reaves. The Reaves/Dinwiddie bench backcourt has similar balance between offense and defense as the Russell/Vanderbilt starting backcourt.

While the last thing Ham should do is play hockey style lineups, I do like the complementary fit and offensive and defensive balance in the proposed Los Angeles Lakers’ starting lineup and primary backups at each position.
The analytics have been screaming all year for the Lakers to go big and starting 6′ 10″ defensive specialist Jarred Vanderbilt at shooting guard could give the Lakers strong positional size advantage in all of their lineups.

Moving Austin Reaves to the bench and getting Christian Wood back from injury could transform the Lakers’ reserves from being a bottom-5 lineup to a top-10 lineup by generating more bench points, assists, and rebounds.