Lakers News: LA’s New Lineup Showcases Promise For Season Turnaround
An injury to Taurean Prince ahead of your Los Angeles Lakers' 134-110 win over the Portland Trail Blazers led to the team exploring its 12th starting lineup on the season: one that featured Rui Hachimura at wing alongside LeBron James, D'Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves, and Anthony Davis.
Nearly everyone has found their way into LA's starting group now this season, but this was one of the better groups we've seen.
A combination of size, scoring, and shooting created a pretty imposing group to get off to a hot start against a young, uptempo Blazers team.
That said, the absence of Prince meant that nobody off the bench is even an average scorer. This made the bench unit susceptible to offensive stagnation (which occurred), as they blew the starting lineup's lead.
Hachimura is also not a good enough defensive player to matchup with some of the better wings in the league, as last night, Portland lacked the offensive pieces to create much, providing a buffer to Hachimura as a defender.
Against better teams like the Clippers on Tuesday, for example, he'd struggle in matchups against players like Paul George or Kawhi Leonard, making him a difficult start candidate.
After experimenting with all these groups, I'm now of the belief that the team's best starting unit might be Russell, Prince, Vanderbilt, James, and Davis, as that way, two solid perimeter defenders are in the fold, as well as two good shooters in Russell and Prince, to pair with a capable shooter in James.
Russell and James are enough to handle the perimeter shot creation/playmaking responsibilities, while Davis and Vanderbilt can anchor the defense, with Prince adding value as necessary.
Off the bench, Reaves can return to his spark plug role, where he has been best this season, as him and Hachimura can add value as scorers against opposing bench units. Meanwhile, Reddish, who has found value as a point-of-attack defender, can cover up Reaves' defensive deficiencies. Max Christie has provided two-way value at times this season too, and Christian Wood has been capable in his spot minutes.
Altogether, that's a 10-man rotation that features two units of 5 that have at least two good scorers/shooters in both units, and as the game progresses/enters crunch time, lineups can be mixed and matched as necessary for the matchup.
We'll see what Ham does, but don't be surprised if more lineup-altering shenanigans take place.
