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Lakers’ Big Three Is Not Working! Should Someone Come Off Bench?

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Analytics is telling the Lakers their Big Three of Luka, Austin, and LeBron is not the juggernaut they hoped for and the team plays much better when any combination of just two of their three offensive stars share the court.

While it’s early in the season and the 17–7 Lakers are still are tied for the 4th best record in the West and 5th best in the NBA, the losses exposed the Big Three’s struggles both on offense and defense when playing together. What’s been extremely concerning is all 7 of the Lakers’ losses have been by double digits, a pattern that not only continues to repeat itself but now seems to be happening more often, leading to 2 losses in the last 3 games.

It’s also not like the Lakers’ Big Three starting lineup has been unstoppable or an offensive juggernaut. Even in their 17 wins, the Lakers only managed a 118.0 offensive (#7), 116.7 defensive (#21), and +0.3 net rating (#15).
The problem was exacerbated in their 7 losses, which all were by double digits to teams with young, physical backcourts. In losses, the Lakers had a poor 103.9 offensive (#29), 122.6 defensive (#22), and -18.7 net rating (#29).

The Lakers current 5-man starting lineup of Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura, LeBron James, and Deandre Ayton has played 76 minutes in 6 games with a 107.6 offensive, 120.7 defensive, and -13.1 net rating.
The only lineup that’s played more minutes is the same 5-man lineup but with Marcus Smart instead of LeBron James. That lineup played 80 minutes in 9 games with a 114.6 offensive, 101.1 defensive, and +13.5 net rating.

The Lakers Big Three starting lineup is broken. Let’s see what Redick could do in the short term to put a band aid on the problem, what Pelinka could do at the trade deadline, and whether somebody needs to go to the bench.

WHAT CAN REDICK DO TO FIX LAKERS’ DEFENSE?

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The move JJ Redick must now make is to start Marcus Smart to give the starting lineup their missing point-of-attack defender, free Austin Reaves from playing that role, and shift Rui Hachimura’ scoring to the bench.

While Smart does not have the prototypical size of a starting small forward, he can still defend up a position and is the Lakers’ best option to replace Rui Hachimura to give the starting lineup an elite lock down defender.
Ironically, the Lakers 5-player lineup of Doncic, Smart, Reaves, James, and Ayton has only appeared for 3 minutes in 1 game, where they posted an offensive rating of 80.0, defensive rating of 200.0, and net rating of -120.0.

Despite that crazy 3-minutes, starting Smart and moving Hachimura to the bench is too obvious a move for Redick to continue to ignore, especially since Smart owns the #1 defensive rating and #1 net rating on the team.
The big advantage of starting Smart is that he, not Reaves, will be guarding the opposing team’s top scorer. Austin’s offense clearly suffered from also having to be the Lakers’ primary on-ball guard defender last two games.

Redick should start Smart for defense, move Hachimura to the bench for offense, and invest minutes in young players with defensive upside like Thiero or Mañon and veterans who play solid defense like Vanderbilt.
Redick should run 10-man rotation with better offense/defense balance. The starters should be Doncic, Reaves, Smart, James, and Ayton with Smith Jr, Thiero/Mañon, LaRavia, Hachimura, and Vanderbilt as backups.

Lakers’ head coach Redick needs to retool his current starting lineup and rotation to play better defense, give more minutes to players who defend, and keep the team winning until Pelinka can make a trade deadline move.

WHAT CAN PELINKA DO TO FIX LAKERS’ ROSTER?

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To be a legitimate contender, the Lakers need to add two defensive players: an elite 3&D starting small forward to defend bigger wing scorers and a big shot-blocking center who could backup and play alongside Deandre Ayton.

The Lakers’ problem is they do not have the young talent or draft capital needed at this point to trade for those two defenders and could be wise to be patient and wait until draft day next summer to make major moves.
Excluding swaps, which Luka trade and Mark Walter sale have devalued, the Lakers only draft capital right now is one first round and one second round pick, which could be enough to fill one of the two roster holes.

It will be interesting to see whom Rob Pelinka targets before the trade deadline. The abrupt move away from trades to free agency last summer was reportedly driven and approved by Mark Walter’s transition team.
Rumors are already popping up about the Lakers making small moves midseason to fix the roster but saving any blockbuster moves to next summer when they’ll have 3 picks and up to $100 million in cap space.

With Friedman and Zaidi working with Pelinka, the Lakers are expected to heavily rely on analytics to target inexpensive young players with strong two-way 3&D potential whom they could trade for before the deadline.
Eight players LA could target include the Blazers’ Robert Williams, Heat’s Andrew Wiggins, Suns’ Dillon Brooks, Pels’ Herb Jones, Magic’s Jonathan Isaac, Kings’ Keon Ellis, and Clippers’ Kris Dunn and Derrick Jones, Jr.

While the Lakers need moves to be contenders this year, there’s a strong argument the smarter move would be to wait until draft day next summer when they’ll have 3 first round picks plus mega cap space for free agents.

WHICH OF BIG THREE SHOULD COME OFF BENCH?

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The reality is the Lakers may not be able to build a championship starting lineup with three offense-first stars in Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves, and LeBron James. One of the three may ultimately have to come off the bench.

The problem with building a championship starting starting lineup around the Lakers’ offense-first Big Three is the other two starters need to be an alpha point-of-attack defender and elite shot-blocking defensive center.
Right now, Hachimura is definitely not alpha point-of-attack defender the Lakers need to guard bigger wing scorers nor is Ayton the bruising shot-blocking rim protector the Lakers need to be an elite defensive team.

What would make building a championship starting lineup and rotation easier would be if one of the Lakers Big Three were to come off the bench. That’s what the first quarter data and the analytics are telling the Lakers.
While it’s painful to imagine the Lakers asking Austin Reaves or LeBron James to come off the bench, it’s not impossible to imagine things getting so bad that Reaves or James ends up volunteering to come off the bench.

Ultimately, the Lakers solution is not asking one of the Big Three to come off the bench. It’s asking their Swiss-Army-knife superstar LeBron James to focus almost exclusively on playing defense rather than playing offense. Instead of focusing on offense and resting on defense, Redick needs to convince James to focus on defense and rest on offense. Turn LeBron into an elite 24 minutes per game point-of-attack defender and rim protector.

The Lakers don’t need one of their stars to go to the bench. What they need is their jack-of-all-trades, Swiss-Army-knife superstar LeBron James to let Luka and Austin dominate the offense while he takes care of the defense.

5 Things: Lakers Bounced from NBA Cup

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I’m not crying over the Lakers losing out on the chance to win their 2nd NBA Cup and some cash, I am annoyed over how it happened. True to form in the 2025-26 season, the Lakers lost in blowout fashion. Almost every single one of our loss has been by 10+ points (the first loss against the Warriors was by 10, all the others are more than that by a wide margin). This trend continued against the Spurs where they jumped out early and we could never really, truly threaten them throughout the rest of the game. There’s a lot of reasons whey we lost and they’re getting repetitive.

  1. Stop getting beat off the dribble. Some of this is skill, some of this is we trend towards playing older players against younger, a lot of is not communicating on screens or having a chemistry on defense. If we weren’t getting shellacked from the outside, the Spurs were driving past us into the paint for easy buckets, especially when we went small. 45 points in the paint isn’t awful (not great, either…) but add in the free throw differential and overall shooting efficiency and you can see how this was a long night for the Lakers defense.
  2. No real defensive leader. This is where missing both LeBron and Smart for all of training camp coupled with Vando’s inability to elevate his game in a meaningful way on offense hurts us a lot. We know LeBron can captain a defense very well, he did so for a month and change last season until injuries slowed him down for the rest of the year. We know Smart can from his days back in Boston but he was out almost all of training camp and nearly half the games we’ve played this season. We know Vando can be a defensive force for disruption when he was a key piece that helped us storm our way back to the Western Conference Finals under Darvin Ham. From all of that on the roster already, the team has no true leader or identity on that end of the floor and the player’s post game comments seem to back my theory up. Someone needs to consistently be available and able to lead the defense through words or actions, ideally both.
  3. Wasted Smart’s best game to date. All I can say is: finally. It’s a shame his best game came in a loss but if he can keep this up…and be available to play (especially in the playoffs) I’ll be happy to think about calling myself wrong regarding choosing Marcus Smart over Jordan Goodwin. But not yet. One good shooting game does not erase the 2 months of bad shooting we’ve all watched as Marcus Smart seemed to be building his own LA mansion brick by brick. If that changes, and he can play in 80% of the remaining games or so, we might see a more cohesive team identity than we have, especially on D.
  4. Jake LaRavia struggling. I don’t know if there’s been a more up and down player for us this season than Jake LaRavia. He’s been in every game, started 7, and he’s either ‘the small forward of the future’ or ‘uh…maybe we should be playing Thiero, Bronny or Vando?’. Last night was the second version. Last night he got burned on D and missed his 1 shot. In 9 minutes he was a team high -25 and that takes some doing. That’s on the 4ish other dudes Jake shared the floor with, as well, but LaRavia’s play is often a benchmark for how the Lakers are doing: positive impact = Lakers win, negative impact = Lakers loss. In losses Jake averages fewer minutes and higher negative rating (usually between -15 and -30) according to basic +/- (a shaky tool, at best) so it behooves both player and coaching staff to figure out a way to get his impact as consistently positive as possible.
  5. Not enough DominAyton. Same could be said, again, for Rui. Ayton went 5-9 and Rui went 3-4 (2-3 from three). Honestly, this feels like it’s harder for the Lakers than it really needs to be. Run more plays for your most efficient players ought not be rocket science and yet…here we are. Out of 87 shots, 4 guys took 70 of them (80.4%) I’ll excuse Marcus Smart (9-16) because he was legit on fire, especially in the 4th, but all 4 are the primary ball handlers for the team and need to do a better job of involving said team. This kind of imbalance will definitely result in an early playoff exit, we need to have a more balanced inside/out offensive attack. In a game where we were getting killed by pace and speed it’s amazing that exactly zero people on the Lakers, one of them being the All Time leading Scorer with a Pass First mentality, seemed able to figure this out. I’m not talking about assists, either, because that really just indicates that somebody else made a shot after you passed them the ball. It doesn’t mean they’re involved or a focal point. Ayton in particular feels like he could have 3-5 post up plays run for him a game. Not a half…per game. Slow the ball down, put your shooters on the strong side and clear out the weak and force the defense to choose. With no Wemby last night it felt we had the recipe for a big game from DeAndre and instead it became the “it’s my shot!” contest from our 4 primary distributors. That’s just dumb basketball and, even though we shot three pointers at volume, we still got our asses handed to us. Big time.

I’m not flushing anymore blowouts because that’s seemingly how we lose. We don’t just lose, we get our asses handed to us through 4 quarters. Such as the case may be, I think we need to look more diligently in what went catastrophically wrong in these games so as to look at ways we can hope the team can self-correct or address via unlikely trade. Just my two bits. Carry on.

What Could Lakers Do With $87 Million Cap Space This Summer?

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The Lakers’ mega decision last offseason to not offer LeBron James an extension means they could potentially enter free agency next summer with $87 million in cap space to sign their or other team’s free agents.

Right now, only 6 NBA teams are projected to have significant cap space to sign free agents next summer, which means the Lakers would only be competing with 5 other teams, none of whom are legitimate contenders. Reports say Lakers will have $55 million in cap space, Wizards $80 million, Clippers $67 million, Jazz $48 million, Nets $44 million, Bulls $35 million. Lakers could renounce players to increase their cap space to $87 million.

While next summer’s free agency may not include superstars like Jokic or Antetokounmpo, here are impressive lists of the available free agents who are unrestricted and restricted free agents or have player or team options.
Besides their own free agents, possible Lakers targets include centers like Porzingis, Robinson, Williams, and Kessler and 3&D guards and wings like Ellis, Olynyk, Oubre Jr., Thybulle, Grimes, and maybe even Wiggins.

While the NBA has tougher limits on free agency than MLB, the Lakers would be smart to to emulate the Dodgers and prioritize building via free agency versus trades since you do not give up players or draft capital.
Last offseason was the perfect example of how adding Deandre Ayton, Marcus Smart, and Jake LaRavia as free agents without having to give up matching salary or draft capital allowed the Lakers to expand their depth.

The Lakers have smartly positioned themselves to have $87 million in cap space next summer to build a legitimate championship roster around Luka Doncic by signing their own free agents and other teams’ free agents.

Re-signing Their Own Free Agents

AUSTIN REAVES, RUI HACHIMURA, & MARCUS SMART

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While the names and numbers could change due to a midseason trade, the Lakers currently have 10 players whom they’ll probably keep and 4 players on expiring contracts whom they’ll probably let walk away in free agency.

The 10 players the Lakers will probably keep include 6 players who are under contract and 4 free agents. Luka Doncic, Jarred Vanderbilt, Jake LaRavia, Dalton Knecht, Bronny James, and Adou Thiero have contracts.
The 4 players who are unrestricted free agents are Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura, Deandre Ayton, and Marcus Smart. They need to be re-signed with raises. Here’s a proposed Lakers 2026–27 salary cap for next summer.

LAKERS PROJECTED 2026-27 CAP SPACE

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On the left, the chart shows the 10 players the Lakers plan to keep, their current or last salary, proposed raise, and projected new salary. On the right, the chart shows the 4 free agents whom they’re going to renounce.
The Lakers project to have $123.5 million in existing player contracts plus $43.6 million in projected raises for a total payroll of $166.9 million for the 10 players the Lakers plan to have on their payroll going into the summer.

The Lakers do have a major decision to make with respect to Deandre Ayton, who has done an excellent job at both ends to help the Lakers win but isn’t the ideal rim protector and floor spacer that Luka needs to win.
There will be several quality starting as well as backup centers in next summer’s free agency who can both protect the rim and space the floor who could replace, backup, or play next to Ayton in a two-bigs lineup.

The Lakers should spend half of their $87 million in open cap space to give raises of $20 million to Austin, $12 million to Deandre, $7 million to Rui, and $4 million to Marcus for a total of $43 million for their own free agents.

Signing Other Team’s Free Agents

ANDREW WIGGINS, ROBERT WILLIAMS III, & KEON ELLIS

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The Lakers plan is to allow LeBron and 3 other free agents walk away for nothing to create an $87 million free agent opportunity where they use half to sign their own top free agents and half to sign other teams’ free agents.

We saw last section how the Lakers used half of their $87 million in cap space or $43 million to give raises and extensions to 4 of their own free agents: Austin Reaves, Deandre Ayton, Rui Hachimura, and Marcus Smart.
The other half of the $87 million or $43 million is to be used to sign free agents from other teams, including a starting point-of-attack wing, backup shot blocking center, and possibly better fitting center to replace Ayton.

The following chart lists Lakers’ top 10 free agent targets for next summer, their last salary and projected free agent price. The Lakers have $43 million that could be used to add 2 to 4 free agents to the Lakers current 10 players.
They could add Andrew Wiggins and Mitchell Robinson. Or Keon Ellis and Kristaps Porzingis. Or Keon Ellis, Walker Kessler, and Robert Williams. Or even Walker Kessler, Robert Williams, Kelly Oubre, and Quentin Grimes.

LAKERS PROJECTED 2026 FREE AGENT TARGETS

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The Lakers’ major challenge in building out this roster around Luka Doncic is what to do about center. While Deandre Ayton has been great, the Lakers need better rim protection and floor spacing from their center rotation.
Could Kristaps Porzingis or Walker Kessler be better starting options for the Lakers than Deandre Ayton? Or the answer could be to build a deeper, more diverse front court rotation by adding Wiggins, Olynyk, and Williams.

LAKERS 2026–27 DEPTH CHART AFTER FREE AGENCY

With $87 million cap space, Lakers could build a legitimate championship team by re-signing their own free agents Reaves, Ayton, Hachimura, and Smart and signing other teams’ free agents Wiggins, Olynyk, and Williams.

5 Things: Lakers Miss the Mark

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Well that was fun. The 7 game winning streak is over and in our first test against 5 teams with winning records we seemed content to play a little too care-free and never adjusted to the intensity of Phoenix’s pressure. Toss in the return of the “Who Is This Guy?!” Laker defense and you have all the required ingredients for a blowout loss. Tip you hat to Phoenix, who came into the game geeked and ready enough to sustain the loss of franchise player Devin Booker after a scant 10 minutes of action. Hopefully this can serve as a quick reminder that, in this league, you can’t just show up. You need to be prepared to go to battle.

  1. Luka trying to do too much in this one. The stat line looks pretty solid right up until you get to the turnovers. 9 turnovers to 5 assists tells the story of the game in a nutshell. Forcing plays that just aren’t there and not really ever adapting to the defensive pressure deployed by Phoenix. This was a game with a quiet whistle, if there’s one thing Luka could do better at it’s recognizing when the refs just aren’t going to call certain fouls in that game. As a rule, the Lakers are overly dependent on drawing fouls and, when those calls don’t come, getting overly invested in chirping back at the refs. Did Phoenix push the boundary of physicality? Absolutely, but that’s something that we’ll need to be able to adjust to better going forward.
  2. Taking scrubs seriously. Once Devin Booker (21.5 ppg) went down, and when you add in that fact that the Suns were missing Jalen Green (15.5 ppg) and Grayson Allen (17.9 ppg) and the scoring punch was, in theory, off the floor. Collin Gillespie, Dillon Brooks and last season’s Laker fan favorite Jordan Goodwin picked up the slack and nobody on our team seemed prepared for it as we failed to apply meaningful defensive pressure to stop any of them. It’s easy to look at guys who don’t play a lot and expect them to flounder when their moment comes. Nick Smith Jr. on our own team had such a moment and went off and it’s on the staff and the team to understand that anyone can be a Nick Smith Jr. on the other team on any given night. Let a guy who doesn’t play a lot make a shot or two and suddenly you’re in for a very long night. Let three of those guys shake loose and you’ll get blown out, like we did.
  3. Lakers need Gabe and LaRavia to hit shots. Especially with Smart dealing with a bad back, which can be tricky to come back quickly from the older you are (as I know from personal experience lol), our bench can fall into a very deferential style of play and just settle for the shots Luka, Reaves and LeBron can create for them. That won’t cut it all season, both LaRavia and Vincent can more aggressively hunt their own shots. LaRavia in particular needs to work on his handle because he doesn’t handle pressure well while dribbling and once he turns the ball over. Vincent seems quite content to let the play come to him on every single possession and we saw in preseason how well he can play with the ball in his hands. This needs to be addressed sooner than later, both these guys need to be averaging 10 ppg for the bench to have any relevance. Currently Jake is at 9.0 ppg and Gabe is an anemic 3.9 ppg.
  4. LeBron’s streak continues. With a three in the 4th The King hit his 10 point milestone. And there was much rejoicing (yay).
  5. Rui’s vanishing act. 1 shot. One. You can argue that part of the Sun’s game plan was making sure the release pass to Rui was covered by a lengthy defender at all times. You could argue that the Lakers didn’t look for Rui often enough. You could argue that Rui didn’t do much to get himself involved. You’d be right on all three. The Lakers, as a whole, don’t run nearly enough plays for their best shooter. Additionally, when the defense is keyed in on him, Rui needs to be better at adjusting his level of aggression in demanding the ball. The staff needs to recognize when the outlet pass from the drive is being covered and help make an in-game adjustment. All parties involved need to work on this because to have a weapon like Hachimura go basically un-used in a game we lost by 17 makes no sense.

Why Mark Walter’s Ownership Matters Both Off And On Court

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Everybody says don’t expect the Lakers to duplicate the Dodgers’ success under Mark Walter because the rules differ, but that wrongly implies that the Dodgers won because of money rather than enlightened ownership.

While the rules of the sports are different, how you build championship teams aren’t. Smart, rich owners hire savvy front office execs, who hire elite, visionary coaches and draft and trade for talented, winning players. While it’s a big advantage to be able to outspend your opponents, that’s not why the Dodgers won three of last six world series. They won because of Mark Walter’s ‘leave no stone unturned’ formula for succeeding in sports.

Under Walter’s ownership, the only word to accurately describe how the Dodgers operate is ‘relentless improvement,’ whether the front office, the coaching staff, marketing department, or every roster spot on the team.
Expect that same relentless upgrading of every aspect of the Dodgers to be ruthlessly replicated with the Lakers. It’s one thing to have the money to make changes, it’s another to have the iron will to relentless get better.

Bottom line, the full transition from the Buss family business to the new corporate version of the Lakers is now happening as signaled by the recent firing of the Buss brothers and hiring of two Dodger execs as advisors.
Mark Walter’s hiring of Farhan Zaidi (Dodger’s analytics) and Andrew Friedman (Dodgers’ operations) as transition advisors was just the first step in expanding and modernizing the Lakers’ entire front office operation.

Mark Walter will change how the Lakers’ front office works and change how the Lakers players play the game of basketball. Let’s take a closer look at why Mark Walter’s ownership matters both off and on the court.

Why Mark Walter’s Ownership Matters Off-Court

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Mark Walter’s ownership will transform the Los Angeles Lakers off-court from a closely run family business to a corporate sports powerhouse that hopefully matches his crosstown Los Angeles Dodgers in championships.

Mark Walter isn’t wasting time as the Lakers’ new owner. Less than 30 days after the NBA approved the sale, Walter fired Joey and Jesse Buss and hired Dodgers’ execs Farhan Zaidi and Andrew Friedman as transition advisors.
The Lakers have also replaced most of the scouting department who were terminated with Joey and Jesse with 3 new highly respected NBA scouts as Walter’s team reviews and revamps every department in the organization.

As a closely run family business, the Lakers have often been guilty of being unnecessarily frugal or shortsighted about investing and modernizing their front office, scouting, player development, and other key departments.
Since Dr. Buss’ death back in 2013, the Lakers have been a team without a guiding vision, on-court identity, or charismatic leader to establish a true championship culture, winning just the 1 championship in the 13 years.

That will all change with Mark Walter. The Lakers will suddenly become a feature cog in the professional sports empire that Walter is building where the teams will share championship data, resources, and philosophies.
Expect every personnel move the Lakers make before the February 4, 2026 trade deadline to be part of a new analytics data-driven decision-making process where, unlike with the Busses, everybody will be on the same page.

Under Mark Walter’s enlightened ownership and direction, the Los Angeles Lakers will finally fully embrace analytics and build an elite championship organization that along with the Dodgers will dominate professional sports.

Why Mark Walter’s Ownership Matters On-Court

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Mark Walter’s enlightened ownership will prove to be just as impactful for the Los Angeles Lakers as its been for the Los Angeles Dodgers, who won their 3rd World Series in the last 6 years as part of Walter’s TWG Sports.

Walter’s company, Guggenheim Baseball Management, bought the Dodgers in 2012 and immediately made them competitive but it took 7 years of ‘relentless improvement’ before they won their first title under Walter.
Mark believes he can utilize the same blueprint or organizational system he developed to optimize efficiency and synergy and transform the Dodgers into World Champions to do the same for the Lakers but much sooner.

What the Lakers need right now is to fix their key roster issues, which are a poor starting lineup defense and an abysmal bench offense, which could be partly solved by a lineup change but ultimately will require a trade.
While LA needs major help defensively, they’re also struggling mightily with their long range shooting, which they cannot ignore. Right now, the Lakers are dead last in the league in 3-point shots attempted and made.

Walter’s enlightened ownership and analytics team building system will dramatically upgrade whom the Lakers draft and trade for as they load up on elite 3-point shooting, defensive physicality, and basketball smarts.
Some things won’t change. The Lakers will still chase superstars. They may even be willing like the Warriors to go deep into luxury tax to win multiple championships. Like with Ohtani, Mark also likes to think outside the box.

Mark Walter believes the Lakers have left championships on the hardwood. He’s confident that, through analytics and data-driven decision making, the Lakers can become just as dominant in the NBA as the Dodgers in MLB.