News Analysis: It’s a big month for the Lakers as trade deadline looms
Forget good. The Lakers want to be great.
That was coach JJ Redick’s halftime message Friday night to the Lakers, his frustration with the team’s lack of attention to defensive details boiling over first into a couple of rage-induced timeouts and later into a challenge to his group to be better.
The timing, which came with the Lakers leading a game they’d eventually win 119-102 against Atlanta, indicates something that’s been percolating behind the scenes over the last month, that the Lakers might actually be on to something worth investing in.
Since the team moved Max Christie into the starting lineup on Dec. 8, the Lakers are 8-3. They’re sixth in the NBA in defensive efficiency during that stretch. Over the last seven games, their offense has awoken. And their acquisition of Dorian Finney-Smith, one of the premier role players available on the trade market, not only gives clues to the type of team they’re trying to build, but also cleared a runway for Austin Reaves to try to become the team’s third star.
All of it has sort of uncluttered things for Redick, general manager and vice president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka and the organization. With a month until the NBA trade deadline and a favorable schedule, the next move has people around the league curious about what direction the Lakers will go in the build to the Feb. 6 trade deadline.
Instead of frantically hunting for a third star or pushing chips in on a starting-caliber center, the Lakers, rival executives believe, will move in different ways than it might’ve seemed earlier this season.
Christie has given the Lakers the kind of defensive speed and shooting they wanted in their backcourt, playing himself out of any marginal trade conversations. And the Lakers’ resistance to a third maximum-salary contract has only gone up since their failed Russell Westbrook experience, the constraints of the new salary-cap rules making that kind of roster construction more of an albatross than a luxury. (Sorry, Jimmy Butler fans.)
There had been some early-season consensus that the Lakers would be aggressive in their pursuit of a center to either play with Anthony Davis or behind him, but the Finney-Smith acquisition makes that seem unlikely.
Long linked to a player like Washington’s Jonas Valanciunas, a target for the team this summer in free agency, it’s become clear that the Lakers’ needs to get bigger aren’t as important to them as their desires to get faster, more athletic and more dynamic.
While teams have expressed interest in Utah center Walker Kessler — the Lakers included — the belief in NBA circles is that he’s not available in any realistic trade scenarios, Utah electing to keep one of the NBA’s top rim protectors through the deadline.
The team also probably used its most practical trade chip — D’Angelo Russell’s expiring contract — in the Finney-Smith deal.
Multiple rival executives have said that they don’t think the Lakers should invest some of their limited draft capital (and tradeable contracts) for a player who slows them down — and one who, in a playoff series, would have a limited role considering the overwhelming bulk of center minutes will still fall to Davis.
While the Lakers, and Redick has said it, do need more toughness, finding it on the perimeter instead of in the paint seems to be the goal.
Even as the Lakers’ offense has spiked over the last seven games, they’ve done it while still being in the bottom half of the league in three-pointers attempted and made. Targeting shooting and athleticism on the perimeter — particularly in the form of a player who can operate off the ball — is something the Lakers should have their eyes on. Rival scouts and executives who agree with that are always quick to point out that virtually every contending team is trying to add athletic shooters to their roster.
A day after Charles Barkley ripped Lakers coach JJ Redick for not being able to make the Lakers great, the coach responded with an indifferent ‘don’t care.’
Instead of rushing into a deal for a backup big man, the Lakers do have a real desire to see what their second unit looks like once Jarred Vanderbilt and Gabe Vincent are on the court together — something that happened just once a season ago.
And Finney-Smith is a tough, switchable, defensive-minded player who can make corner threes at a high volume. He’s very much the kind of player Redick wants to have in his system, and even after three games (and zero real practices), it’s obvious how comfortable Redick is in coaching his former teammate in Dallas.
He challenged him by name after the win over the Hawks, directly holding him to accountability for his first-half defense while going out of his way to praise him for how he recovered in the second half.
There’s also the recent run of play from LeBron James to consider, his week absence at the start of the Lakers’ 8-3 stretch leading to a run of All-NBA-level play from him while passing his 40th birthday last week. If this level is sustainable to some degree, the Lakers’ chances at working themselves into a “great” team go up.
“We’re a ways [from being great] to be honest with you,” Reaves said after the Lakers beat Atlanta. “But everybody’s working in the right direction to becoming that.”
Sunday’s game at Houston will be a real challenge, the Lakers having to conquer what’s become a bad matchup because of the Rockets’ size and athleticism. And Tuesday, against a short-handed Dallas team playing without Luka Doncic, the Lakers’ defense will have to consistently handle the types of details they messed up early on Friday.
After that, the Lakers play their next eight games in Los Angeles — a real chance to cement these last four weeks as more than a blip in their season.
The changes the Lakers have already made to their roster will ultimately dictate the ways they decide to move next — if they move at all.
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