In a dream scenario for every ESPN producer, basketball-adjacent yapper, and SpringHill Company stakeholder, the Los Angeles Lakers will be the most fascinating team to watch during the NBA’s sprint to the playoffs. It’s not even close: No other team in the league so dramatically rejiggered itself at the trade deadline, to the point that the Luka Doncic trade feels categorically incomparable to the De’Aaron Fox or Jimmy Butler trades. The Lakers are fifth in the Western Conference at the moment, uncomfortably equipoised between second and eighth, leaving them very little latitude in figuring out how to get their two superstars, who are 15 years apart in age, on the same page.
Most intriguing of all, they have to do it with a hilariously unbalanced team. Days after snagging Doncic, L.A. agreed to trade a cache of future assets for permanently mangled Charlotte Hornets center Mark Williams—only to get him in for a physical and learn that there was apparently a compelling medical reason that he had played only 85 games in three seasons. Whatever the Lakers braintrust saw was bad enough that it compelled them to rescind the trade, which is a huge bummer for Williams and will probably cost him millions of dollars, and leaves the Lakers with a half-formed roster, without a functional two-way big. This is what makes them so fascinating. They have to try and win big, capitalizing on what’s turning into a great LeBron campaign, with a totally compromised squad. The Lakers did not intend to have their season serve as evidence in the ongoing trial of whether or not big men have a place in the NBA, though that’s now their burden.
L.A.’s center corps is as follows: Jaxson Hayes, who is big, springy, and terrible at making decisions or rebounding the basketball; Alex Len, who is so old and useless at anything besides hitting people that he could not crack the rotation of the Sacramento Kings, who had the most glaring backup-center weakness in the league; and Christian Koloko, who looks overmatched playing against third units. None of these three would be functional backups, let alone starters, on good, well-assembled teams, yet the Lakers will have to roll with them until they can do something this offseason.
In practice, that means Hayes will start and Len will get some spot time off the bench, but the Lakers will spend long stretches without a true center on the court. Given that they will start a defensive liability in Austin Reaves alongside James and Doncic, that puts a ton of pressure on Dorian Finney-Smith, Rui Hachimura, and Jarred Vanderbilt to protect the rim and grab rebounds. Those guys aren’t super up for that, though Vanderbilt is a good defender with decent positional size, and Gabe Vincent, a good perimeter defender, has finally started to hit enough shots to stay on the court for longer than four or five minutes at a time. That’s all nice, but will not matter in the playoffs against huge teams like Oklahoma City, Denver, and
Memphis, each of whom will regard the prospect of small-ball lineups featuring either Vanderbilt or Len at center as food. Jaren Jackson would kill those guys. L.A. would never grab a single rebound against Denver.
The flip side, however, is not bullshit. Doncic has played just two games as a Laker, both against the Utah Jazz, but he and James together should be extremely fun and cool. The offense should be great even if the Lakers don’t have a consistent lob threat, because L.A. will be able to fully commit to spreading teams out and making space for two of the greatest pick-and-roll operators of their era(s) to go nuts. James and Doncic are both good at everything, and both have a track record of elevating compromised teams.
You can look at a lineup with Hayes, Vanderbilt, Vincent, and Finney-Smith think, correctly, that it smells kind of stinky, but with either star running things, the malodorous aspects fade. All of a sudden, the perimeter players are only shooting wide-open threes. Hayes is catching easy lobs because everyone is staring at Doncic in fear. James and Doncic both have very established records of being good enough all on their own to square plenty of contradictions, like Larry Hughes being the second-best player on a Finals team, or Maxi Kleber and Dwight Powell anchoring the backline of a conference finalist. They have plenty of contradictions to square here, too, but they also have each other.
What they don’t have is time. The Lakers need James to be at his world-eating best to compete with any seriousness come April. A fully torqued-up LeBron can cover so many deficiencies; as bad as L.A.’s center rotation is, he’s still totally capable of protecting the rim, grabbing 15 rebounds, and mashing on defense. For all of Doncic’s heroics, that’s why I’m excited to watch the Lakers: Their win condition is the greatest player of his era holding off time itself for another few months.
