Player Grades: Lakers vs. Suns

Grading every Lakers player’s performance from the team’s 109-105 loss to the Suns.

Well, no one expected the Lakers to go 82-0. And as far as frustrating losses go, Monday’s ranks pretty low.

The Lakers jumped out to an early lead, but in a flip of the script from the meeting between these two sides over the weekend, the Suns stormed back. The second half was a back-and-forth affair that eventually went Phoenix’s way down the stretch.

That isn’t to say there weren’t aspects of the game that weren’t frustrating, and we’ll touch on that. But the Lakers were gong to lose sooner than later and having it come in a close-fought game where plenty of things went wrong isn’t the worst way to lose games.

So, let’s drive into the loss. As always, grades are based on expectations for each player. A “B” grade represents the average performance for that player.

Anthony Davis

36 minutes, 29 points, 15 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steal, 3 blocks, 12-24 FG, 0-2 3PT, 5-6 FT, +14

The only negative you could take away from AD’s game is that maybe he didn’t score as much as expected after his red-hot first quarter. In the opening 12 minutes alone, AD dropped 16 points, then managed 13 the remainder of the way.

Part of that was the Suns focusing a lot of attention on him. Part of that was also a number of other guys stepping up. But there’s nothing bad about Davis’ performance, including defensively where he remains a monster.

Grade: A

Rui Hachimura

31 minutes, 20 points, 10 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal, 1 block, 8-18 FG, 3-3 3PT, 1-1 FT, +20

While JJ Redick and AD have gotten lots of praise this season, Rui has flown under the radar. That is no longer the case after Monday.

Rui was great, recording the seventh 20-10 game of his career and fifth with the Lakers. That came despite him missing some bunnies/dunks and getting a couple shots swatted by Kevin Durant.

But on the other end, I thought he defended KD about as well as one can. It’s been a great start for Rui that is trending upward.

Grade: A

LeBron James

36 minutes, 11 points, 5 rebounds, 8 assists, 1 steal, 3-14 FG, 2-5 3PT, 3-6 FT, -17

Well.

I’m not sure I can remember a worse game for LeBron in a Lakers jersey than this one. The entire game, he had a very weird vibe or energy to him. I’m not sure if he was feeling it after exerting so much against Sacramento, but this was one of the oddest games he’s had in a long, long time.

There’s a bigger question to about LeBron this season. His first two games were largely underwhelming and while his third game was fantastic, this game was abysmal.

For now, it’s nothing more than just something to monitor. For now...

Grade: F

D’Angelo Russell

33 minutes, 14 points, 1 rebound, 8 assists, 5-13 FG, 2-9 3PT, 2-2 FT, +0

There were some pretty big swings between Good D’Lo and Bad D’Lo in this one. Early on, he was throwing some dimes to both AD and Max Christie. Later on, he was missing some very makeable shots before being pulled late for Gabe Vincent.

While he seems to be slowly making progress, it’s been a pretty rough start for D’Lo this season save for a few timely stretches. And until he can be a positive offensively, he isn’t goign to be finishing games.

Grade: C+

Austin Reaves

38 minutes, 23 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals, 8-15 FG, 5-9 3PT, 2-3 FT, +12

It goes a long way in explaining how good Reaves was — and how bad LeBron was — that I wanted the ball in his hands late to play two-man game with AD. He was tremendous down the stretch and came up with some very timely buckets.

Again, it’s early but the jump a lot of fans expected from Austin last season might be coming this season.

Grade: A

Jaxson Hayes

13 minutes, 4 rebounds, -18

Man, for as good as the Lakers bench lineup had looked over the weekend, they were awful on Monday. Hayes looked lost at times offensively, doing little more than catching passes and running dribble hand-offs without much of a purpose to them.

It’s a night when you really wished someone like CHristian Wood was available to change things up.

Grade: F

Gabe Vincent

19 minutes, 3 points, 1-3 FG, 1-2 3PT, -5

It’s hard to get a read on Gabe’s season so far. I wouldn’t say it’s been great by any means. He’s struggled a lot offensively, even if he hit a timely 3-pointer on Monday, but I’ve liked what he’s done defensively.

That being said, what’ll stick out most for fans on Monday was him getting cooked by KD on switches, which isn’t really his fault and more a byproduct of the defensive scheme and KD being really good.

Grade: C-

Max Christie

23 minutes, 5 points, 2 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 blocks, 2-4 FG, 1-1 3PT, -13

While I appreciate his aggresiveness and commended it last season, I’m going to need Christie to figure out a different plan of attack at the rim than jumping off two feet and trying to two-hand dunk on everyone.

Grade: B-

Dalton Knecht

11 minutes, 1 rebound, 0-3 FG, 0-1 3PT, -13

I would say this is the first time Knecht looked like a rookie this season. I would also imagine that Phoenix had a much better idea of what to expect from Knecht in their second meeting against him than their first.

Grade: D

JJ Redick

After the game, JJ Redick took plenty of blame for this loss, particularly on the team’s 14-point second quarter.

That’s quite the change of pace from the previous coach. However, that doesn’t excuse those things from happening. The Lakers looked utterly lost in that second quarter and it felt lucky for them to even be in the game.

In short, he looked like a rookie head coach tonight.

Grade: C

Monday’s DNP: Cam Reddish, Bronny James

Monday’s inactives: Jalen Hood-Schifino, Maxwell Lewis, Christian Koloko, Quincy Olivari, Armel Traore, Jarred Vanderbilt, CHristian Wood

You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.