What does Rui Hachimura have to do to be his best for the Lakers?
We’ve seen different ways he’s found success in Los Angeles. During the 2022-23 season, he joined the Lakers at the trade deadline and helped LA go on a run to the Western Conference Finals.
The following year, he averaged a career high 13.6 points. Last season, under head coach JJ Redick, he solidified himself as a starter and took a career high 4.2 3-point attempts, converting on 41% of those shots.
Now, entering a contract year, Hachimura
shared what Redick wants from him this season.
“I think he wants me to be more aggressive on both ends, offensively, defensively, rebounding,” Hachimura said on media day. “He thinks that sometimes I get shy. So I think, for me it’s just being a mentality of being consistent with being aggressive. That’s going to be, for my whole season, the key for me.
“Being in shape, it’s going to be very important but also I think that, mentality-wise, I got to be locked in every game to do whatever I need to do for the team and just to be aggressive.”
Playing alongside Luka Dončić and LeBron James, aggression is certainly needed. Rui has to run hard to the corners to get open for threes and crash those boards, helping LA win the rebounding battle.
The Lakers have three ball handlers and creators with LeBron, Luka and Austin Reaves and if Rui is going ot be a starter again, he needs to stay in attack mode on offense. On defense, Hachimura needs to embrace his defensive assignments and demonstrate a high level of commitment and desire to do things right on that side of the ball.
“I think with this team, I need to be aggressive more…” Hachimura said. “I think for me at this age and this [stage of my] career, I can be the guy that try to be aggressive the whole game, offensively, defensively, consistently so I think that’s what they ask for so I just got to try to do that.”
Understanding one’s role is the first step to mastering it. Entering this NBA season, it sounds like Hachimura knows what he needs to do. Now he needs to go out there and do it.
If he does that, his role and a new deal will take care of itself. Hachimura will become an invaluable player for the Lakers and could perform so well that another team offers him more money, similar to what happened with Dorian Finney-Smith.
But hopefully, the Lakers won’t cheap out this time if that happens.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.
