Pundit Sees Sixth Man On Likely 2023 Champ As Possible Future Laker
The Los Angeles Lakers pay close attention to what their opponent has that they do not whenever they get knocked out of the playoffs and this 2023 season was no different. It can definitely be argued that the Lakers post-trade deadline were a whole different group than the one they kicked off the year with and that the Denver Nuggets wouldn't have been able to take them down so easily but that is all hindsight.
All that Rob Pelinka and the rest of LA's front office can do is take their time this summer mulling over the best options to spend their cap space and decide which players they want to run it back with. I am 99.9% sure that Austin Reaves stays in Hollywood... few teams will look to jump into the $100 million range for him just to hurt the Lakers and the marketing opportunities for him here are unmatched.
Rui Hachimura is also a huge priority considering that he got better the more time he got with the squad and he still has a ton of upside. Our own experts already touched on why it makes sense to include D'Angelo Russell and Malik Beasley as well, mainly because they gain almost nothing from letting them leave.
But a big reason why Hachimura and Reaves are viewed as no-brainers for the Lakers right is because they showed up when it mattered most and that was in all three rounds of LA's 2023 postseason. In 24 minutes per game, the former Gonzaga forward was able to average 12 points on 55 percent from the field and 48 percent from three.
Reaves showed the entire NBA world that the noise surrounding him was more than just Twitter users having a fun time as he shined with averages of 17 points, 4.6 assists and 44 percent from deep. LA definitely would not have made it to the Western Conference Finals without the two of them.
However, the Lakers also were the victims of opposing teams watching some of their own role players take their game to another level on the biggest stage. In four games against the purple and gold, Denver's own Bruce Brown was able to crack double-digits in scoring in three of them.
Even though this may not sound like much, coming off of the bench and doing this decided the outcome of majority of those games. When the Nuggets have two superstars in Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokić along with knockdown shooters in Michael Porter Jr. and Kentavious-Caldwell Pope, any other contributions are the cherry on top.
With that being said, The Athletic's Jovan Buha thinks the Lakers may look to pry him away from Denver this summer by offering him their full MLE in an attempt to strengthen their wing depth and scoring options even more.
"Brown would almost certainly cost the Lakers’ entire non-taxpayer midlevel exception based on his play during the Nuggets’ Finals run. Several players on this list could certainly earn at least that much as well, since this free agent class is subpar."
(Via The Athletic)
Brown very well may win his first championship with the Nuggets this season so we'll have to see what his mindset is like once the season wraps up.
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