The NBA preseason is over, the new season regular season will officially start on the 20th, the Lakers opener opponent is the Warriors, the Lakers lost two opponents in the preseason, compared with the Warriors who won 5 consecutive games, the Lakers who have lost 6 consecutive games are obviously in some bad shape. At present, the Lakers' Ariza and Tucker are expected to be out of the game for more than 8 weeks, and they will not return until December at the earliest, while the other three injured players, Nunn, Munch, Ellington, and Vogel, have not given a commitment to the opener.
After the Lakers signed Westbrook this summer, they filled the team roster with a base salary, and the depth of the lineup was greatly improved, but if they could not maintain their health, then this advantage was completely lost. Now the Lakers still have a mid-season buyout signing place, can the Lakers use it now? After the layoff of Ayayi, the Lakers still have a vacant two-way contract place, perhaps the Lakers can also take this road to increase the depth of the team lineup, is there still a reliable candidate in the market now? US media columnist Jason Reed analyzed that the Lakers still have a chance to pick up leaks at this stage, and Pelinka needs to act as soon as possible.
First alternative: Christ Dunn.
Yesterday, Chris Dunn was cut by the Grizzlies, no team has accepted him yet, in the past season, Dunn has only played 4 games in the Hawks, averaging 1.3 points + 1.5 rebounds per game, the Hawks sent him to the Celtics in the offseason, and then sent to the Grizzlies by the Celtics, and finally the Grizzlies chose to give up on him. Dunn is only 1.91 meters tall, but his arm span reaches 2.07 meters, his biggest feature is defense, to some extent, Dunn and Caruso's defensive characteristics are similar, able to adapt to fast-paced offensive and defensive conversions, defensive aggression is very strong, good at using physical confrontation to exert defensive deterrence, in addition to a defender with a certain projection ability.
Statistics show that in the 19-20 season (Dunn's most recent full season), Dunn averaged 25 minutes per game, 7.3 points + 3.7 rebounds + 3.4 assists + 2 steals, that season his defensive plus-minus was +3.1, and he ranked third among all defenders in the statistics of players who played at least 1000 minutes! Dunn can be used as a supplement to the Lakers' backcourt defense, at this stage Ellington, Munch, Nunn are all plagued by injuries, Bazemore has not shown too much defensive advantage, Tucker has been absent for too long, Vogel needs a defensive guard to support the team's backline, Dunn is a good choice.
Second alternative: Giles
Yesterday, the Clippers announced that the team decided to keep former Rockets veteran and former Zhou Qi teammate Haltenstein, so they cut Giles. Giles is 2 meters 11 tall, only 24 years old this year, more inclined to play the No. 5 position, but in the Lakers, the boundaries will not be so obvious, partner Davis, the fourth and fifth positions are not much different for Giles. At present, after the Lakers are injured in Ariza, there is only one substitute in the fourth position: Anthony, and Anthony is not a big forward in the typical sense, and the Lakers flank is too short of people and needs a fixed rotation of the No. 4 position to share the pressure on James and Davis. The Lakers could try signing Giles on a two-way contract to give him some chances.
Giles has good mobility, a relatively large defensive coverage, a low-post ball-holding offense is his weakness, and he is also prone to injury. At present, the Lakers are too short of players on the defensive end, Howard and Jordan Jr. positions are more fixed, Vogel does not have many cards in his hand, and Pelinka may make up for this deficiency with a two-way contract on the free market in 2 days.
The Lakers suffered six consecutive losses in the preseason, not necessarily a bad thing, now the Lakers need to consider how to solve these problems, of course, smart women are difficult to cook without rice, some things Vogel can not solve, perhaps from this summer when signing, some problems were ignored. Look forward to the Lakers' performance in the regular season!