Alas, as our own Raj Chipalu so enthusiastically says on Twitter, the Los Angeles Lakers play basketball on Monday, which means everything we’ve discussed and projected throughout a transformative offseason comes to fruition for us to watch and analyze.
One of the most debated topics a team faces throughout the season is the rotation. Head coach JJ Redick said the plan will be to “generally” stagger Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves in the lineup this season, as is common practice around the league.
In
the 1,092 minutes (over 41 games) the star backcourt shared the floor last season, they had an 8.9 net rating and had a plus-minus of +208. Now that Los Angeles afforded itself more depth and, in turn, more rotational flexibility, it’s more reasonable than in seasons past for Redick to have one of Dončić and Reaves on the floor at all times.
The question then becomes how do you optimize the lineup when one of the two is off the floor? Let’s dive into what I think could be the most effective non-Dončić and non-Reaves lineups this season.
Dončić-Grimes-Thybulle-Thiero-Kessler
Here we have your prototypical Luka lineup: point-of-attack defenders who can space the floor in Grimes and Thybulle, a defensive anchor and Dončić’s pick-and-roll partner in Kessler and the freak athlete you need around Luka in Thiero. I did grapple with choosing between Thiero and LaRavia at the four, but I ultimately chose Thiero’s ceiling as an athlete over LaRavia’s ceiling as a spacer.
As it stands, Thybulle is a must-have in both lineups. He’s too dynamic a defensive player not to have next to either of the stars (which becomes more difficult if he’s starting alongside them).
Offensively, a Dončić-Kessler action is the focal point. Grimes provides secondary shot-making and thrives in catch-and-shoot opportunities, which is also where we’d see Thybulle. What Thiero lacks as a spacer, he makes up for in the dynamism he brings as a cutter and corner-crasher.
I ran this lineup through Basketball Index’s Lineup Analyzer, which shows the expected performance of a lineup of players given their data from last season (Walker Kessler’s data is from the 2024-25 season since he only played five games last year):
The lineup is projected to be slightly above average offensively, but what really stands out is its 106.5 defensive rating, which is 8.9 points better than league average. Oklahoma City led the league with a 106.5 defensive rating last season. Its most-played lineup had a 102.3 defensive rating in 167 minutes. Grimes, Thybulle and Thiero are all pretty versatile defenders, which mitigates an opposing offense from isolating Dončić on defense.
Something else I considered in this lineup is replacing Grimes with Collin Sexton. When you couple that with LaRavia in place of Thiero, you have a Sexton-Thybulle-LaRavia trio where each has been known to play with grit throughout their careers — an important trait to have playing with Dončić and Kessler
Reaves-Thybulle-Vanderbilt-Williams-Mamukelashvili
This one’s fun.
What do you do when you have an embarrassment of riches in wings? You use them. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do with Reaves. This lineup presents some of the most defensive positional versatility on the roster.
The key to this lineup working out is Mamukaslvili. Offensively, Austin is more inclined to operate off the ball than Dončić is, which makes Mamu’s secondary playmaking a premium here. Defensively, his ability to guard up on fives and down on wings makes switching not only necessary, but valuable.
Vanderbilt has shown an ability to guard bigs effectively. Williams may be effective in that in spurts if his bulking-up process over the offseason proves futile.
Reaves lacks natural athleticism, which is why you’d surround him with athletes. Overall, this lineup will run around on both ends of the floor, but Reaves and Mamukelashvili will contain it offensively, while Thybulle, Vanderbilt and Williams will contain it defensively.
When running this lineup through Basketball Index, you get a positive net rating but an average offensive rating.
An alternative is inserting Grimes for Williams, which lowers the projected defensive rating to 104.7 and raises the offensive rating slightly to 116.18, boosting the net rating to 11.45.
There are plenty of possible lineups for this iteration of the Lakers, many of which we’ll see play out in the preseason.
What are some of the Dončić- and Reaves-less lineups you’d like to see? Drop them in the comments and let us know!
You can follow Connor on Twitter at @cmorenoNBA.
