The Lakers have shifted to more small ball, but is that the solution?
When the Lakers traded for Dorian Finney-Smith, it gave them more size and physicality on the wing while shifting them more toward playing small ball. But is that the approach they should be taking?
When the Lakers traded D’Angelo Russell for Dorian Finney-Smith, it was clear they were shifting the team's identity.
In fact, the D’Lo for DFS swap might represent one of the most distinct archetypal differences in the entire league — particularly when thinking about players who spend the majority of their time on the perimeter.
Russell is a skill guard whose offensive game is defined by his controlled and deliberate tempo on the ball and a defensive reputation that, to put it kindly, is not considered a strength. Meanwhile, Finney-Smith is an off-ball, high-motor, 3-and-D wing defined by his rugged defensive versatility and an offensive game almost fully dictated by spot-up jumpers set up by teammates.
Beyond the basketball skill set — to say nothing of the personality, demeanor, and temperament — differences, though, is that, at the most basic level, the Lakers traded a guard for a forward. And while Russell is not a smaller guard in the mold of a Damian Lillard or a Trae Young, his general finesse style of play stands in stark contrast to the physicality that the 6’7”, 220-pound DFS brings to the court.
Functionally, then, the Lakers got much bigger with this trade. Rather than playing three guards with a combination of height and/or strength deficiencies in Russell, Austin Reaves, and Gabe Vincent, the Lakers would only play two. Further, with DFS entering the rotation as a legit combo forward who can play either position, the Lakers would also be able to slide Max Christie, Dalton Knecht and Cam Reddish down to the shooting guard position almost full-time rather than having them spend at least some of their minutes at one of the forward spots.
This sort of shift cannot be overstated. With Finney-Smith in the fold, the Lakers would only have one player in their rotation under 6’5” (Vincent) while also possessing a plethora of players with good positional size to support LeBron and Anthony Davis in the rotation. Would some of these bench groups' shot creation and ball handling suffer because of this shift? Undoubtedly.
But if looking to support the team’s two superstars, a move back towards more guards and wings with some combination of size, athleticism and shooting is a more proven path than what the team has done in the seasons following the 2020 championship. The hope would simply be that these groups could defend well enough, but more on that later.
That said, when the Lakers traded for DFS, they began another shift within their personnel groupings — playing smaller and deploying more center-less units. In the weeks leading up to the trade, Jaxson Hayes had been out with a sprained ankle, and Christian Wood has not played all season due to recovery from knee surgery. Thus, the Lakers only had two-way big man Christian Koloko to back up Anthony Davis.
The Lakers had found a role for Koloko, whose defense-first mindset and skill set on that side of the ball proved helpful. However, his offensive limitations were evident and clearly impacted how many minutes JJ Redick and his staff felt comfortable playing him.
In some games, Koloko might only get one shift and in the first half only. In others, he might see his second shift cut short. And, on some nights, he might not play at all with Redick instead deploying lineups without a traditional big on the floor and going with front court combinations of LeBron and Rui Hachimura flanked by differing combinations of Reaves, Knecht, Christie, Vincent and Reddish.
As the Finney-Smith trade happened, it seemed clear that the Lakers would lean into this idea even more. Since the Lakers traded for DFS, the team has played 40 minutes with LeBron and Rui on the court while AD was on the bench. In those minutes, 14 have been played with Hayes, while 17 have been next to Finney-Smith. Koloko has not played with them at all.
This feels important.
Mind you, Hayes isn’t out of the rotation entirely by any means. He still plays backup center in groups where LeBron is on the court, but Rui is not. That said, a staple lineup of last season and from earlier in the year was at the beginning of second quarters when both Rui and LeBron would play with another big man, usually Hayes.
Those minutes are now being eaten into by small-ball groups where Finney-Smith is the third front court player and, at least in the five games since the trade, it’s at a rate that is higher than the minutes with Hayes or Koloko.
Now, to be fair, one of those five games was against the Cavs. Hayes did not play in that game even though he was off the injured list. Of the 17 minutes cited above, then, seven of them came in that Cavs game, making it seem a bit more evenly split between how often it’s DFS vs. Hayes playing next to Bron and Rui.
But, and again, this is important, the Lakers aren’t just playing small with DFS as the third front court player.
Remember, since the trade, there have been just 40 minutes with AD off the court and Bron and Rui on. Only 35% of those minutes have come with Hayes or Koloko.
Before the trade happened, this percentage was much closer to 50/50. Of the 154 minutes LeBron and Rui played without Davis flanking them pre-DFS trade, 73 of those minutes — or 47% — came with Hayes (60) or Koloko (13) playing next to them.
What seems clear to me, then, is that JJ Redick has used sizing up on the wing as an avenue toward playing more small-ball units overall. The degree to how well this is working, honestly, is not clear. The samples are simply too small to extract much from, but there are a couple of early trends.
First, since the trade, of the five groups that have logged a minute or more and have LeBron, Rui, and DFS all on the court with AD off, three of them have a positive plus-minus and all those also have Austin on the court.
The two groups without him are both negative. Taking this even further, out of the 12 total without any of the bigs on the court, these three lineups are the only center-less groups with a positive plus-minus. Period.
Second, these smaller groups do their most damage on offense while having mixed results on defense, particularly those winning their minutes. Simply from a lineup construction perspective, this makes sense.
If you throw LeBron, Rui, and Austin on the floor with DFS and Christie or Dalton, those are groupings that can spread defenses out, hit shots and even get to the rim some if the defense overcommits to taking away jumpers by closing out hard or presses up too much (on LeBron and Austin specifically).
The defensive challenges of these groups are also totally explainable. They lack rim protection, have defenders who can be challenged in isolation (Austin and Rui), and at least one defender (Rui) who can be put into multiple actions off-ball that can strain his processing and ability to maintain the integrity of the group’s defense.
Combine all this with the challenges these groups can face on the backboards and it makes sense they’d need to win by outscoring teams, which is why having that additional ball handler matters.
It is also why answering the ultimate question of whether these groups have a real future should be a priority over the next couple of weeks, and definitely before the February trade deadline. The Lakers have long been linked with a backup center in trade rumors, particularly one with some defensive chops who can serve as a reliable backup to AD and help lift the team’s bench units.
After the DFS trade, it has felt less likely the Lakers would seek out that big man and instead further invest in these small-ball groups, particularly with the prospect of reinforcements coming. Which brings me to one name we have not mentioned yet: Jarred Vanderbilt.
The Lakers announced this week that Vando’s rehab has continued to progress positively and that he has begun five-on-five full-court work with contact against assistant coaches. The next step is for him to transition against NBA players in practice and, if all goes well, return to game action on a minutes restriction.
If Vando can return — and potentially Christian Wood in the near future — the Lakers suddenly have even more front court talent and, in Vando, a defensive maven who can credibly defend anyone from point guards to power forwards, particularly those who have primary ball-handling responsibilities. Adding him to those center-less lineups is a no-brainer, even the ones that already have LeBron, DFS, and Rui in them.
And if you think that’s a stretch, don’t. Because JJ Redick has himself said that’s a possibility he’s considering.
“Yeah, there’s certain times you can look at Rui, LeBron, Vando, and Dorian out there with another ball-handler/creator,” Redick said in response to a question about the ability to be bigger with some of the small-ball groups. “[That is] a switchable small group with — outside of Vando — elite spacing right there and that gives us more stuff in the toolbox.”
Where this all settles, of course, remains to be seen. Vando is not even back yet and there’s still plenty of integrating to do after adding one rotation player to the mix in DFS. Forecasting too much about how things settle into place and/or whether another trade is on the horizon feels a bit premature.
That said, the Lakers are clearly eyeing a future where lineups are filled with more wing-sized players, particularly those who can switch on defense without compromising the offense too much. And, if I had to guess, I’d say that’s the sort of team this front office wants to build and that this head coach wants to deploy.
Whether it’s the one that can actually win a title? Well, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t skeptical.
You can follow Darius on BlueSky at @forumbluegold.