Los Angeles Lakers lineup preview part 2: Tailor offense around Julius Randle
Defensive Outlook
With two above-average wing defenders and a pair of mobile bigs, I’m pretty optimistic about how well this group could be stopping opponents.
KCP has been one of the premier on-ball guard defenders since coming into the league. He gets into people’s jerseys, stays with them while chasing them around the floor and fights hard over screens to stay with his man. Deploying him on the best opposing guard allows the rest of the defense to focus on the remaining four players.
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Corey Brewer may be a massive bust for being the No. 2 pick in the 2007 NBA Draft, but he’s still a 6’9” athletic player who can give you solid defensive minutes off the bench. A paring of Brewer and KCP allows Clarkson, who’s not a great defender by any stretch at this stage of his career, to be hidden on defense. It’s one of the stronger wing sets Luke Walton can use this season.
Kuzma needs to improve his defensive intensity, but he has all the physical tools to switch onto smaller guards. He showed this lateral quickness in college at Utah; he just didn’t show the consistent effort teams want to see in an NBA defender.
Randle hasn’t shown the ability to protect the rim, which leads to the biggest defensive obstacle of challenging shots at the rim. Randle is 6’9” himself and averaged 0.5 blocks per game last season — not the ideal measurements/stats you look for in a rim protector. Learning to alter shots at the rim is paramount into him becoming a dominant small-ball 5. His activity on the boards does ease this concern mildly.