Lakers News: League Expert Picks And Predicts L.A.'s Starting Five
During a Lowe Post podcast conversation with ESPN's L.A. beat reporter Ramona Shelburne, her colleague Zach Lowe cooked up his ideal selections for the Lakers' starting five lineup. Lowe also revealed his prediction for what the Lakers would opt to do when it came to selecting starters.
Lowe assumes the Lakers are going to trot out a starting lineup of Russell Westbrook at point guard, Kendrick Nunn at shooting guard, LeBron James at small forward, Anthony Davis at power forward, and Damian Jones at center. Lowe and Shelburne concur that Jones appears to have earned the starting five spot over fellow returning Laker Thomas Bryant in part as a result of his compelling athletic upside.
First selected by the Warriors with the 30th pick out of Vanderbilt in 2016, the 6'11" big man did not crack Golden State's rotation during his first two seasons in the NBA, which coincided with the club's two Kevin Durant-era title runs. Jones latched on with the Hawks for the 2019-20 season, then split the 2020-21 season between the Suns, Lakers, and Kings.
Last year, during his lone full season spent with the Sacramento Kings, Jones enjoyed his most productive run yet. In 56 games (including 15 starts), he averaged 8.1 points, 4.4 rebounds, 1.2 assists, and 0.8 blocks a night, across just 18.2 minutes. If he can just manage to match that production (and, ideally, stay healthier for longer), he and Bryant will help cover the center position for 35 minutes or so. Though Anthony Davis will surely be drafted into spot minutes at center, the more he can preserve his body away from the post, the better.
Lowe goes on to say that word on the progress of Nunn, who missed all of the 2021-22 season with an ankle sprain and subsequent knee bone bruise, has encouraged the Lakers, and that L.A. seems to want to continue its ill-fated Westbrook-as-starter experiment for some insane reason. Lowe supports the four non-Westbrook starters, but attests that Patrick Beverley, a good three-point shooter and perimeter defender who knows when to defer and when to attack on offense, would be a much, much better fit in that starting lineup than Westbrook. How long it takes the Lakers to appreciate this remains to be seen.
Starting the 6'2" Nunn, a good shooter and passer but a poor defender, over players like Lonnie Walker IV or Austin Reaves, makes sense from a floor-spacing perspective, especially if Beverley occupies the other starting backcourt slot.
Shelburne and Lowe mention that the Lakers could certainly still consider trading Westbrook, and circle four clubs in particular as potential landing spots with the kinds of assets that could appeal to L.A.: the Indiana Pacers, the San Antonio Spurs, the Charlotte Hornets, and the Utah Jazz. This writer has to concur. Playing Westbrook major minutes would actively hurt this team.
