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Lakers Need Better And Deeper Rotation To Win Championship

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No disrespect to the Lakers’ surprising 8–3 start to the season without LeBron and with Luka missing 4 and Austin 3 of the first 11 games but L.A. needs a better and deeper rotation if they want to win the championship.

With NBA teams across the board trying to duplicate the Thunder’s aggressive high-pressure point-of-attack defense, the level of physicality, number of injuries, and free throws taken have been unprecedented. NBA teams have traditionally built rosters with 8 to 9 legitimate rotation players but with injuries and load management ravaging lineups, teams should consider raising the ideal number of rotation players to 12.

Every night we’re seeing teams with 4 to 6 players on their injured list struggling to put together competitive starting lineups and rotations that make sense with back-of-the-bench reserves. Time to build-in insurance.
The problem with most teams is their roster is clogged by multiple players who are development projects or disappointments who don’t contribute and need to be traded or cut to make room for more rotation players.

Right now, because of Pelinka’s reluctance to make moves, the Lakers are one of the NBA teams with multiple valuable roster spots wasted upon development projects or players who are not what they need right now.
The Lakers currently only have 8 rotation players upon whom they can count: starters Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura, LeBron James, and Deandre Ayton plus Marcus Smart, Jake LaRavia, and Jaxson Hayes.

Gone are the days when teams only needed 8 or 9 rotation players. The game evolves, play gets rougher, schedules get tougher, pace gets faster. The Lakers need a better and deeper rotation to win the championship.

How Could Lakers Add Four More Rotation Players

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To add 4 rotation players to the 8 they already have, the Lakers need to pull off a blockbuster trade that not only nets them 2 rotation players but also opens up roster spots and cap space to add 2 more buyout rotation players.

We’ve already seen how important the buyout signings of Deandre Ayton and Marcus Smart were for the Lakers this season. The Lakers need to pull off a consolidation trade that opens the door to repeating that success.
One of the unexpected benefits of the new CBA is the acceleration of the buyouts of overpaid veteran players and the prohibition of second apron teams like the Celtics, Timberwolves, and Suns from signing buyouts.

The blockbuster trade(s) the Lakers need would swap Vanderbilt, Vincent, Kleber, Knecht, and draft capital for a 3&D starting small forward and defensive backup center and open door to add 2 buyout rotation players.
For example, the Lakers could trade for Andrew Wiggins and Goga Bitadze and sign buyouts Kelly Oubre and CJ McCollum or trade for Dillon Brooks and Daniel Gafford and sign buyouts Khris Middleton and Terry Rozier.

Imagine adding Wiggins, Bitadze, Oubre, & McCollum or Brooks, Gafford, Middleton, & Rozier to a Lakers 8-man rotation that already possessed Doncic, Reaves, James, Smart, Hachimura, Ayton, LaRavia, & Hayes?
The Lakers would not only have a much deeper and more diverse starting lineup and rotation but would also have 3 or 4 legitimate rotation players who would essentially be their insurance policy against player injuries.

Strategically, the Lakers need to build a deeper and more diverse starting lineup and rotation with at least 12 legitimate rotation players to be able to win the championship despite negative injuries and load management.

5 Things: A Tale of Two Halves

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As can often happen in the NBA, the Lakers had a Jekyll & Hyde game. The Lakers defense finally arrived in the road trip, making a rare appearance out of the locker room after halftime. Along with the return of Reaves and another stellar outing from Luka, the Lakers put together a great half of basketball to turn a close game into a solid win. The capper? LeBron has been cleared to practice with the Souty Bay Lakers in order to ramp up and get ready for his season debut.

1) Smart leading with defense. 7 steaks is getting it done. No other way to put it. Tonight was a great example of the best one can expect and hope for out of the vet. 3-7 from three (4-9 overall) with a 2-1 assist ratio is the kind of  across the board production we could use more of.

2) Return of Reaves. If it wasn’t apparent to someone last season, it should be now: the Lakers need Reaves. He creates a different type of defensive collapse than does Luka or LeBron can. He creates better lob chances because he sells harder on his drives and forces the defense to pull in faster snd harder. This either opens up a lane for a lob more effectively than it does for Luka and Ayton. He’s drawing fouls or creating quality scoring options kn his drives and it makes the offense work.

3) Luka aka The Don. While I appreciate the sentiment when people call him Luka Magic (because some of that shit is straight mystical) I prefer The Don. First there’s only one Magic (I am recalling how classy Albert Pujols was j. Rejecting all comparisons to the OG MLB Machine, Stan Musiel) but Luka had all the tricks working last night. He scored from all over snd we even got a driving dunk in the lane. The potential for him winning MVP will be one of the season’s enduring plot lines, and a lot of that will resolve based on overall record along with gaudy stat lines, but we needed this version of Doncic to right the ship.

4) Rui returns to form. He finally shot below 50% from the field in the loss, making it a key and stat to track when he got back over 50% in a win. Rui, when he’s aggressive, can completely change the offensive dynamic. When passive it allows his man both to rest in D and lowers his on-court worth. When he’s working his man down, making him defend in an island on the weak-side, he helps create the kind of matchup problems coaches live to exploit. Great bounce back game from Rui.

5) Controlling the glass. I thought the Lakers both improved from the Atlanta game and bumped the effort tip in the rebounding department in the 2nd half. When the other team wants to play more quickly than you, you need to both limit their chances by grabbing defensive rebounds and limit the leak outs in defensive rebounds. The team did well as a collective with Hayes and a Knecht adding 5 boards each off the bench. Good stuff and it’s a battle we need to at least be close in every night.