For as badly as the Lakers flamed out of the playoffs in the spring, a number of things had to go wrong.
JJ Redick took a lot of rightful blame for his stubbornness and rookie-like decisions. The team’s
stars all shouldered blame for subpar performances as well.
But one of the biggest areas of failure was the team’s bench. When the games mattered most, few players could be relied upon. And while Redick may have made the wrong call with his infamous Game 4 decision not to make a sub, his bench failing to offer productive minutes led him to that point.
With that on the mind, the Lakers addressed their depth concerns this summer, adding a trio of role players in Marcus Smart, Jake LaRavia and Deandre Ayton while only losing one real contributor in Dorian Finney-Smith.
Now, the team heads into the new season with more depth on paper and 82 games to figure out who is reliable.
As we did last year, we’ll also be keeping track of that reliability with our weekly rotation trust level pieces. While there is only the preseason and expectations to rely upon heading into the opening week, let’s find where the baseline level of trust is with the Lakers rotation.
This one will be a bit longer as the only players we know will be starting are Luka Dončić, Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura and Deandre Ayton.
Gabe Vincent
Vincent bounced back from injury to play in a career-high 72 games last season. Add in a strong finish to the preseason and he may be in line to be in the starting lineup this season.
Regardless of whether he starts or not, he’ll need to up his shooting percentages, particularly from range, to be more of a factor this season.
Jarred Vanderbilt
Back in the mix after two injury-plagued seasons, Vanderbilt impressed during the preseason. If he can get back to his pre-injury form, he has an argument to be a starter with LeBron out…and perhaps even after he returns.
The questions surrounding him will be about his offense and his ability to stay on the floor. Both have caused him issues during his Lakers tenure and have led to him being a non-factor in separate postseason appearances.
Jaxson Hayes
The last we saw of Hayes in a meaningful NBA game, he was such a detriment that he was benched, going from the starting lineup in Game 4 to a DNP-CD in Game 5.
Perhaps surprisingly, he returned to the Lakers this offseason, though in a perhaps more appropriate role as a back-up. During the second half of last season, he excelled next to Luka. In a lesser role with lower expectations, can he maintain that level of production for a full season?
Marcus Smart
One of the trio of players brought in for that added depth, Smart has the most experience of the newcomers. He has played in the biggest games and is only a couple years removed from being voted the best defensive player in the league.
The question is how much have injuries taken away from him? He’s played in just 54 games the last two seasons. Were the injuries bad luck or has his style of play led to his body already breaking down?
Jake LaRavia
After letting DFS walk this summer, LaRavia was the first call in free agency to come in and replace him at a much cheaper price. The Lakers are betting on LaRavia’s impressive but small sample size of work across multiple teams in his young career.
If he is able to take on a bigger role and remain an efficient, productive role player, then the Lakers found a steal in free agency. And if you’re a believer in that, you may want to ignore his preseason stats, because they look rough.
Dalton Knecht
Knecht only barely made the cut to be included in this article and it may be short-lived. In Friday’s dress rehearsal against the Kings, Knecht did not play until the fourth quarter when the starters were removed. That’s not an encouraging sign that he’ll be in the rotation.
A poor second half of last season bled into a bad Summer League showing. The best version of Knecht is a valuable role player on a team without much reliable 3-point shooting. But we’re quickly coming up on a year since we’ve seen that version of him.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude or on BlueSky at @jacobrude.bsky.social.
