With LeBron James out for a month, we’re going to get a rare sneak preview of what the Los Angeles Lakers could look like with an offense-first Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves backcourt but without their second superstar.
It’s one thing to consider Austin Reaves’ skillset to be redundant when a team also has Luka Doncic and LeBron James in their starting lineup. Everything suddenly changes when you view the Lakers without James. While the Lakers were already Luka’s team, LeBron’s injury will only accelerate the transition, giving Luka and Austin opportunities they might have had to wait until next year to take advantage of and fully develop.
While the James, Doncic, and Reaves had a dismal 3-player net rating of +0.1 for the Lakers last season, Luka and Austin posted a strong 2-player net rating of +6.5 for last season, 5th best for Lakers with over 500 minutes.
Contrary to the +0.1 dismal 3-person net rating with James, Doncic and Reaves posted solid positive 3-player net ratings of +15.5 with Vincent, +13.9 with Finney-Smith, +9.9 with Hachimura, and +8.6 with Hayes.
That data suggests the poor fit of Lakers Big 3 last season could have been LeBron James and not Austin Reaves. Don’t forget, last season was the only time since his rookie year LeBron’s season on/off plus/minus was negative.
While no LeBron could cost the Lakers early season losses, don’t discount silver linings like ripped a Luka getting free reign, a hungry Austin taking his game to a new level, or an underrated Rui finally playing right position.
Surrounded by the right starters and backups, Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves could be a championship backcourt. The conundrum is right now the only likely way to get the right starters and backups is trading Reaves.
Great post, this is indeed a very golden opportunity not just for the Austin/Luka pairing and seeing how viable it is (in the early regular season which is just glorified pre-season until Christmas, generally speaking) but for guys on down the roster to show they deserve some run. Jake, Dalton, and Gabe all will need to shoulder some of the LeBron being MIA load.
Honestly, Knecht might end up being the biggest beneficiary if he get his shot to fall and at least compete on D. Vando always had a role carved out, can he expand on it and make taking him out of the starting five a major decision by making some threes? Hasn’t really been able to prove that aspect of his game in a meaningful way, yet, but he’s taking the open shots which is what you need to do.
LaRavia should see some added burn, too, which is good because it’s hard to assess his best fit so far. All in all, this should be considered a mighty silver lining indeed. Of course we don’t want LeBron hurt but I’d far rather see him ease his way into the season then end up in street clothes 3/4 of the way through.