Player Grades: Lakers vs. Sixers
Grading every Lakers player’s performance from the team’s 118-104 loss to the Sixers.
At this point, it shouldn’t have been surprising to see the Lakers play supremely unserious basketball as they did on Tuesday in Philadelphia against the Sixers.
Many things were working against them on the night. For one, the Lakers are just going to have a dud performance once about every two weeks. Sometimes, they pull out wins in them, like against the Nets, and other times they won’t, like Tuesday.
Lastly, the Lakers are weirdly awful on Jan. 28 and haven’t won a game on that date since 2004? Perhaps this was the most easily predictable loss in hindsight. It doesn’t make it any less annoying.
So, let’s dive into the win. As always, grades are based on expectations for each player. A “B” grade represents the average performance for that player.
Rui Hachimura
24 minutes, 13 points, 2 rebounds, 1 assist, 6-9 FG, 1-3 3PT, -8
In his return, Hachimura was decent. He didn’t rebound, though, which is pretty inexplicable given the lack of size Philly has.
And, ultimately, there will be a trend with these grades.
Grade: F
LeBron James
33 minutes, 31 points, 8 rebounds, 9 assists, 1 steal, 10-16 FG, 1-4 3PT, 10-11 FT, -11
There has never been an emptier 30-point near triple-double than LeBron’s on Tuesday. He had eight turnovers and looked low energy most of the game. He padded the stats in the fourth quarter with 15 points to make it look nicer than it was.
But if this is what LeBron is going to look like in back-to-backs, he may as well just sit.
Grade: F
Anthony Davis
10 minutes, 4 points, 2 rebounds, 1 steal, 2-3 FG, +3
AD barely met the minimum minutes to even receive a grade before exiting the game with an abdominal strain. It wasn’t the best opening 10 minutes but he wasn’t great either.
Grade: C
Max Christie
22 minutes, 3 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists, 1-6 FG, 1-6 3PT, -8
If you’re going to make one of your six 3-point attempts, you better play good defense and nobody on the Lakers did that!
Grade: F
Austin Reaves
34 minutes, 13 points, 6 rebounds, 8 assists, 1 steal, 6-10 FG, 1-3 3PT, -4
The worst thing about Reaves was that he was largely invisible. Except on the defensive end, where he was also really bad!
Grade: F
Dorian Finney-Smith
19 minutes, 3 points, 3 rebounds, 1-6 FG, 1-6 3PT, -2
DFS didn’t even have wins in the non-box score areas on Tuesday. And he, also, was getting cooked by Maxey on top of not scoring, leading to the five fouls he committed on the night.
Grade: F
Jaxson Hayes
19 minutes, 4 points, 3 rebounds, 2 blocks, 1-1 FG, 2-2 FT, -19
I’m going to keep this short, because I’ve said this many times. But Jaxson Hayes can not be in the rotation if this team wants to be a serious contender. He can not defend the rim and can not rebound. It was unbelievably painful to watch on Tuesday.
Grade: F
Bronny James
15 minutes, 3 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 block, 0-5 FG, 0-3 3PT, -8
Between Gabe Vincent’s injury, Shake Milton being bad and Bronny’s recent play in the G League, it made sense for JJ Redick to go to the rookie for a spark in the first quarter.
Everything that happened after that was really bad.
Grade: F
Dalton Knecht
23 minutes, 24 points, 5 rebounds, 8-13 FG, 5-8 3PT, 3-3 FT, -14
You know what? Knecht actually was about the only player I thought played well, relatively speaking. He couldn’t defend, but that’s just kind of the expectation for him. He was still knocking down shots when the result was still somewhat in doubt, so he gets some credit for that.
Grade: B
Christian Koloko
18 minutes, 4 points, 2 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal, 1-1 FG, 2-2 FT, -7
Koloko also struggled on Tuesday, but he absolutely should be getting Hayes’ minutes moving forward. Koloko at least offers something defensively, which the Lakers need if AD is out. And even if he isn’t, he’s the type of big you want to play next to AD in a two-big lineup.
Grade: C
Cam Reddish
18 minutes, 5 points, 1 rebound, 1 steal, 1-1 FG, 3-5 FT, +5
The worst thing that can happen from this game is Redick thinking this performance warrants more playing time for Reddish. It doesn’t, because he still was exactly the same bad Reddish we’ve seen.
Grade: F
Shake Milton
He only played six minutes, so we’ll spare him a bad grade on this one.
JJ Redick
On one hand, I sympathize with him that there isn’t much you can do when AD goes out as this roster is not designed to absorb a loss like that.
On the other hand, he’s tried some interesting lineups over the past two games, but they have largely failed.
Grade: D
Tuesday’s inactives: Jalen Hood-Schifino, Armel Traore, Trey Jemison III, Christian Wood, Gabe Vincent, Jarred Vanderbilt