Rotation Trust Level: Who should be starting for the Lakers?
Injuries has led to lots of lineup shuffling for the Lakers over the last week, but what does their best starting lineup look like?
Injuries have mounted and mounted for the Lakers to the point that, on Sunday, half of their rotation was out. Headlined by the absence of LeBron James and Austin Reaves, the Lakers had a patchwork lineup and rotation that featured all three two-way players seeing rotation minutes.
Fortunately, the Blazers are one of the worst teams in the league and the Lakers grabbed an important victory ahead of nearly a week off from games.
With so many iterations over recent weeks, though, what is the Lakers’ best starting lineup?
It’s a question that’s hard to answer, largely because it’s hard to know who the team will have available moving forward. For now, though, we can take a look at who has the most trust in the rotation.
After a week off, we’re back with our weekly Rotation Trust Level series. For now, I’m going to go back to what I assume the starting lineup will be once Reaves returns, hopefully on Friday.
Starting lineup: Austin Reaves, Dalton Knecht, LeBron James, Rui Hachimura, Anthony Davis
D’Angelo Russell
All things considered, no one in the rotation may be more dependable for the Lakers right now than D’Lo. Now that his shot has seemingly come around — knock on wood — then his overall play feels like a huge positive for the team.
This version of D’Lo is arguably the best guard on the team. But the question is, do you reinsert him into the starting lineup? Or, is it a matter of “don’t fix what isn’t broken” and let him anchor the bench as the sixth man?
Gabe Vincent
This has unquestionably been the best stretch of Vincent’s career in purple and gold. His defensive acumen has been matched by actual scoring and playmaking.
Interestingly, a lot of that success has come with Vincent in the starting lineup. Alongside LeBron, Vincent is a great off-ball guard. Now that he’s found his footing, it makes a lot more sense to keep him in the lineup...even if he likely should have been out of it weeks ago.
With Knecht struggling, does it make sense now to keep Vincent in the starting lineup once Reaves returns?
Max Christie
Similar to Vincent, Christie has found his footing after a really rough start to the season. Since re-entering the rotation against the Spurs, Christie is averaging 8.3 points on 45.3% shooting from the field.
His 3-pointer needs to come around still as he’s shooting just 33.3% in that span and he’s still prone to some mistakes, but this feels a lot more like the version of Christie that was expected to start the season.
Cam Reddish
It’s pretty evident at this point that once the Lakers get completely healthy, if that day ever comes, that Reddish will be out of the lineup. He has minimal value and is little more than a defensive specialist.
After a decent start to the season from beyond the arc, Reddish is shooting 1-9 from range over his last seven games. If he can’t knock down 3-pointers, it’s basically impossible to play him in a serious rotation.
Christian Koloko, Armel Traore
While I won’t go as far as making a poll for the pair, I will talk a bit about them.
Traore got more run over the last week of games, playing in all three of the team’s games. That coincided with the team switching more defensively, which a more mobile Traore can do better than Koloko.
However, on Sunday, the team switched less and Koloko played more. Traore brings an energy when he’s on the court, but it’s often chaotic in nature. Sometimes that’s good and he corrals loose balls and fights for rebounds. Sometimes that’s bad and he takes three shots in two minutes of play.
Koloko feels like the better option until Hayes returns as he’s more reliable defensively and has a higher floor. There really haven’t been bad Koloko minutes this season.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.