The severely shorthanded Lakers team that went 1-5 in the preseason cautiously stepped its way into the regular season only to become just as banged up, but have somehow found much different results by going 3-2 in their first five contests.
Prepared to be down LeBron James, the team has already also had Luka Dončić, Marcus Smart, Jaxson Hayes, and Gabe Vincent miss time, and on the second night of a back-to-back in just their fourth game of the season had just seven of their 14 regular contract players
available.
The games have not always been pretty, but after an opening night struggle-fest vs. a Warriors team that looks very strong, the team has won three of its next four games through a combination of high-level offense, steady production from its role players and some huge individual performances that carried the team home.
As this has happened, camaraderie has fostered, and the team is growing together and leaning on each other, even though they’ve been nowhere close to whole.
And, while the samples are very small and there is so much season left to play, we have still started to learn some things about this group.
With that, here are five observations from the Lakers first five games…
Austin Reaves knows kung-fu
One of my favorite movie scenes comes from The Matrix when Keanu Reaves’ character Neo is uploaded with a series of training programs that will help him survive in the Matrix. After an especially long upload session, Lawrence Fishburne’s character Morpheus comes to check on his prized pupil who sits up in his chair and says, “I know kung fu” to which Morpheus then responds, “Show me.”
The two then have an epic sparring session that is one of the most timeless action set pieces in recent movie history. It’s also a pivotal shift in Neo’s progression into “The One” and meant to symbolize that he is ever closer to not only being able to survive in the Matrix, but also to manipulate it and fulfill his destiny.
What does this have to do with the Lakers, you might ask?
Well, Austin Reaves knows kung fu.
After a season where Reaves’ growth as an on-ball threat was nurtured and prioritized within how the team would play — even after acquiring Luka Dončić in a trade — those reps and all the growing pains that came with them are now paying off in the form of Reaves outright carrying the Lakers for entire games offensively as both Dončić and LeBron have sat out with injury.
In the three games that Reaves has played without his superstar teammates, he’s tallied the following stat lines:
- 51 points, 11 rebounds, 9 assists, 2 turnovers in a win over the Kings
- 41 points, 4 rebounds, 5 assists, 8 turnovers in a loss to the Blazers
- 28 points, 1 rebound, 16 assists, 3 turnovers in a win over the Wolves — including the game-winning basket
It’s not just the production, either. Austin’s general decision-making and command as the main shot creator has progressed incredibly far in the past season-plus, flashing an elevated understanding of how to manipulate the defense and then on what steps to take in order to capitalize on the opening he’s set up.
Against Minnesota on Wednesday, he recognized early that the Wolves were sending multiple defenders at him in the pick-and-roll as well as swarming him when he’d come off screens or dribble handoff actions. After initially looking to score through this added attention, Reaves shifted to a more balanced attack, getting off the ball earlier in possessions and using the Wolves pressure against them.
His 16 assists didn’t all come on these sorts of actions, but many of them did as he consistently hit Ayton in the pocket for jumpers, Jake LaRavia for open threes on skip passes and Rui in the gaps after both screens and cuts.
And it’s not just that he’s making these plays against magnified attention, it’s that he’s doing it against high-level defensive groupings, where he’s being pressured at the point of attack by All-Defense level perimeter stoppers like Jaden McDaniels and Toumani Camara, who are then backed up by rim protecting bigs like Rudy Gobert and Donavan Clingan.
In other words, these are not slouches that Reaves is finding ways to cook. And in passing these sorts of tests, he’s showing that he’s further along than even his biggest supporters would have expected him to be at this point.
Deandre Ayton has found his place
Ayton is the rare sort of player who is both universally understood to be talented both from a physical and skill level standpoint, while also not given the benefit of the doubt and nitpicked for all the ways he either does not deliver on that talent or, more specifically, does not do it in the way those same people would want him to.
Time after time, critics will tell you what Ayton is not doing enough of, how what he is doing could be done better or just generally why his numbers don’t impact winning at the rate expected when taken at face value. This led to some national observers to wonder if Ayton was even really an upgrade for the Lakers while others were seemingly relishing the moment when fans of the team would learn about the real Ayton who did not roll hard, did not grab the key rebound or did not defend the way he needed to on the game’s most important possessions.
And maybe Lakers fans will learn about that player eventually. But, so far, all they’ve seen is the version of Ayton who is trying hard to do the right thing on most every possession, is hitting his career averages with 16.0 points and 9.4 rebounds per night and is proving to be a wonderful pick-and-roll partner for the team’s dynamic shot creators.
More specifically, Ayton’s ability to be a threat in the short roll and play “in the pocket” as a finisher who is more than comfortable sliding into midrange jumpers, floaters, and runners in and around the paint is giving the Lakers an offensive element they sorely missed after trading Anthony Davis.
Further, Ayton’s natural understanding of how to screen — what angle to take, how to reposition and flip screens, when to slip out vs. make contact — is proving very important to both Reaves and Dončić in helping them get open to create the level of offense they have.
For example, on the aforementioned Austin game winner, Ayton deftly recognizes that Gobert is sitting up higher and waiting for the action to come to him, so Ayton runs past him into the paint, making Gobert divert his attention to where Ayton is going. Ayton then reverses course and runs back into the screening action with Reaves, leaving Gobert a step behind and rushing to get into position.
When Reaves comes off the pick, he sees that Gobert is a beat late and approaching too wide, allowing the split of the pick that ultimately led to the runner that Reaves sank at the buzzer.
Austin deserves the love he’s receiving for making the shot, but Ayton’s understanding of how to execute his role in that play was also critical.
Yes, the sample is small. And I understand Ayton has the reputation he does for a reason. But, he’s been a pivotal player in the Lakers winning the games they have, outplaying Rudy Gobert and Naz Reid twice and then totally dominating his matchup against Domantis Sabonis in the team’s win over the Kings.
This is exactly why the Lakers got him and is why I remain optimistic the team has found the big they need to help them against some of the league’s best teams.
Bronny James is not yet ready
I do not want to harp on Bronny James too much here. He’s the team’s 13th or 14th man on most nights and should still end up seeing reps in the G League this season when the Lakers roster is fully healthy.
However, because the team has not been fully healthy in both the preseason and in their first five games, Bronny has been given opportunities to build on the growth he showed over the course of last season on both sides of the ball. And, well, while he has had some moments for sure, Bronny still looks pretty far away from being even a fringe rotation player.
In Wednesday’s win against Minnesota, Bronny got a single five-minute shift in the first half but did not do enough to earn another stint in the second half. Instead, JJ Redick relied on Nick Smith Jr. to be the lone guard in that lineup and extended the minutes of his other perimeter players to make up for Bronny not playing.
Against the Blazers two nights earlier, Bronny did get more run and showed some on-ball defensive chops against Shaedon Sharpe and Jerami Grant, but his off-ball defensive work was not as focused as it could have been and offensively, he’s still at his best in transition or by being a connecting player who works on the second side rather than the sort of on-ball player he’s (seemingly) being groomed to be.
This isn’t meant to bury Bronny at all. But because he’s gotten the chances he has against other rotation-level NBA players, it does show the gap that has not yet sufficiently closed to feel comfortable with him playing extended minutes in a game — even as the “next man up” due to injuries.
And while that isn’t necessarily a disappointment considering his age and where he was taken in the draft, for a Lakers team that is only carrying 14 players and who is dealing with the number of injuries they are — particularly to their ball handlers — it’s hard to have him be as far away as he is.
Don’t give up on Dalton yet
The rapid fall from favor of Dalton Knecht is both interesting, reflective of how quickly things can change in this league, and probably a bit unfair. Knecht’s early season impact last year had him being discussed as a steal of the draft.
But after the nixed trade that would have sent him to Charlotte, a phasing out of the rotation last year and then a series of struggles in summer league, the preseason, and then to start the regular season, Dalton has spent more time in the trade machine than he has on-court in meaningful rotation minutes of late.
However, in the loss against the Blazers, Dalton started to resemble the player he was last year, and then even more so against the Wolves a game later. Racing out in transition for a lob dunk, driving closeouts into mid-range jumpers and taking threes without hesitation, Knecht looked something that he just has not too many times since the team tried to trade him…
Comfortable.
Now, who knows whether this lasts at all. Confidence is a tricky thing, waxing and waning as much because of your own self-belief as much as the belief of others around you. Further, because of the team’s injuries, Dalton has been thrust back into a real rotation role that could just as easily dissipate once Luka and Marcus Smart are back playing real minutes.
But, with Gabe out for at least a couple of weeks (and very likely longer), I hope Dalton continues to get chances and, when he does, he plays with the sort of verve and abandon he’s shown in his last two appearances. He’s the sort of player who will never play mistake free, but the potential of him as a scorer and shot maker is always only a couple of buckets away from bubbling over and for a team that can bury opponents with high-level offense, he can fit right in with the ultimate strengths of this group.
Luka Dončić is who we knew him to be
I will keep this portion short. Dončić has only played in two games and remains questionable for Friday’s game in Memphis. The hope is that he will return to action at some point over the weekend, but time will tell.
After the abundance of caution the team showed with him throughout the preseason and now in taking these games off, I’ll simply say that I wish he were on the court more but also understand that the Lakers and Luka’s own medical folks want to be less brazen about him pushing through ailments.
That said, availability aside, Luka was absolutely dominant in the two games he did play, torching the Warriors to the tune of 43 points, 12 rebounds, and nine assists and then following that up with a bludgeoning of the Wolves with a near triple-double of 49 points, 11 rebounds, and eight assists.
It’s the how of these numbers that is most impressive, though. Luka is getting downhill and into the paint with ease, beating single coverage and high hedges and then, once into the teeth of the defense, finishing with a proficiency level of mastery in and around the restricted area that resembles numbers you’d see from big men who dunk all the time.
On the season, Luka is second in the league in drives per game with 20 per contest. And once he’s penetrated the defense, he has made 75% (6-8) of his shots in the restricted area and 92.9% (13-14) of his shots in the paint that did not come at the rim.
For long-time Luka observers — or even if you just watched him at EuroBasket — none of this is a surprise. This is the player who made five consecutive All-NBA First Teams, the player who has terrorized opponents and led teams to the Conference Finals and Finals as the best player.
That said, watching him open the season the way he did for the Lakers was extremely reassuring and I can’t wait to see him keep it going when he returns to the court.
You can follow Darius on BlueSky at @forumbluegold and find more of his Lakers coverage on the Laker Film Room Podcast.
