The opening weeks of the season have revealed a lot about the Lakers this season, including that the team has a very shallow bench as things stand.
The Lakers have learned a lot about their team on their current five-game road trip. After a fast, positive start at Crypto.com Arena, they hit the road and had reality smack them in the face.
A blowout loss to Cleveland poured over into a bad second half in a win in Toronto and it all culminated with a loss that’ll likely stand as one of the worst of the season in Detroit.
It was a loss that also saw a notable rotation change as Cam Reddish provided a second-half spark in place of Max Christie. Unfortunately, Christie is not alone in underperforming
So, what better time than now to debut our new weekly series, Rotation Trust Level, taken from our friends over at Liberty Ballers. This will give us a chance to look at the current rotation for the Lakers and vote on how much trust fans have in each player.
It’s a bit of a mixed bag for Hayes on the court this season. On one hand, largely speaking, I feel like he’s done about as well as he can across the season so far.
And yet, that’s still not really good enough. He provides so little defensively and only a bit more as a rebounder that, at times, it feels like he’s a 7-footer for no reason.
Despite him being better than he was this time last year, the Lakers are still going to be looking across the trade market for an upgrade. The problem is that, for now, there isn’t an alternative on the roster, which is perhaps the only reason he’s still getting regular playing time.
There is no mixed feelings about Vincent. Even if he showed perhaps a bit of optimism early in the season after missing most of last year, it’s all gone. There might not be a better stat to sum up Vincent’s lack of impact so far than one shared by our own Darius Soriano on Twitter Monday night.
tim hardaway jr. scored 19 points vs. the lakers tonight. gabe vincent has scored 19 points all season.
— Darius Soriano (@forumbluegold) November 5, 2024
Any sort of impact Vincent provides defensively — which has been mitigated this season with how much the Lakers switch — is completely undone by being a non-factor offensively.
It’s early, but it really feels like the Lakers might have been burned by another Heat role player.
It would be really, really hard to draw up a worse start for Christie than the one he’s had over the first two weeks of the season. For all the expectations he had coming into the season, he’s fallen flat on his face.
It’s not entirely unexpected considering he’s a 21-year-old playing his first real minutes. But the Lakers really need him to be much more reliable. Not only has he been unreliable, he’s been downright awful to the point that he was benched against Detroit in favor of Cam Reddish.
With all due respect to Reddish, do you know how bad you have to be playing to be benched for someone you know will give you nothing offensively?
He’s still young and he can still figure some things out, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s out of the rotation for the short-term, either.
Well, this is a surprising addition to the rotation. Honestly, I don’t have much of an argument against including him right now. The bench is in a really, really bad place and anyone that can give a spark is welcome.
Reddish at least added some perimeter defense against the Pistons. He didn’t score and that will always be the issue with him. In the short term, though, I’m fine with having him out there. He impressed against the Pistons and he at least provides something on one side of the court.
Did I save the best for last? So far, there’s a good argument for it!
Maybe it’s because the expectations are a bit lower as a rookie, but Knecht has impressed this year. And considering how little everyone else on the bench has done, there’s a good argument for increasing his minutes moving forward.
Redick, though, did the opposite against the Pistons. Knecht played nine minutes and none in the second half. I hope the coaching staff takes a step back and looks at the bench as a whole and ups Knecht’s minutes.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.
