Los Angeles Lakers offseason frontcourt overhaul paying dividends this season
With the Los Angeles Lakers backcourt struggling at times, it’s their revamped frontcourt that is carrying the scoring load this season.
The Los Angeles Lakers entered the 2017-18 NBA regular season with six new players on the roster, including four changes to the starting lineup from last season.
While the wins tally hasn’t changed much from the 2016-17 Lakers up to this point in the season, the roster alterations to this year’s Lakers have seen a guard-dominant team transform into a team relying heavily on its frontcourt.
Beginning with last season’s team, the Lakers’ top four leaders in points per game were all guards, and the top three in usage percentage were also guards. Fast forward to this season and you’ll find four of the top five scorers per game and usage percentage log most of their minutes in the frontcourt. Let’s look at why this production has flipped since last season, beginning with the discrepancies in guard play.
The shift from ball-dominant players to a make-the-extra-pass environment was made evident when the Lakers traded D’Angelo Russell, and selected Lonzo Ball with the second overall pick in the 2017 NBA Draft. It’s not to say that Russell failed to put up reasonable assist numbers (4.8 per game last season), but too often he looked for his own shot vs. the pass-first mentality of Lonzo.
Lou Williams was traded to the Houston Rockets in February for last season, yet still led the Lakers in scoring with 18.6 points per game. Williams was another ball-stopping guard that was shoot-first, but his role was to create instant offense of the bench, something he did well as anybody in the league. This style just wasn’t needed for the rebuilding Lakers, and netted a first round draft pick that turned into Josh Hart.
The Lakers’ new starting backcourt of Lonzo and free agent signing Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is more inclined with how this team wants to play basketball. Lonzo has struggled shooting the ball, but his passing and high-basketball I.Q. complements the 3-and-D game of KCP. It’s also beneficial to the team how little they need the ball to affect the game, which has opened up plenty of space and opportunities for the frontcourt to shine.
Aside from the guard play suiting their style, the frontcourt was primed to take a step forward simply based of talent upgrade from last year’s Lakers. Brook Lopez is head-and-shoulders better offensively than Timofey Mozgov and Tarik Black, and deserves more touches than those two, which is why Lopez averaging the second-most points per game with the second-highest usage percentage on the roster shouldn’t shock anyone.
Lopez was expected to provide a steady halfcourt option for the Lakers, but he’s not alone in the high production frontcourt overhaul of this team. Rookie Kyle Kuzma leads the team in scoring with 16.5 points per game. Brandon Ingram is not too far off with 14.8 a night. Julius Randle averages 12.2 points per game off the bench. Even Larry Nance Jr. is up to 10.6 points per game in the eight games he started before injuring his hand.
This means that a year after having one frontcourt player average double-digits points per game, the Lakers have five eclipsing that number this season. The Lakers have transitioned from having one of the worst frontcourts in the NBA to having a young, dynamic frontcourt that can hurt you offensively all over the place, and are all capable of playing with one another.
The increased scoring and usage could be credited to natural progression from Ingram, Randle and Nance, but the Lakers seem to be tailoring their offense to their frontcourt, something very different from a season ago.
A sign of great coaching is playing to the strengths of your roster, and that’s what head coach Luke Walton is doing as Lonzo and KCP work off their slow shooting start. Even if these two start finding their shots, I wouldn’t expect a drop-off in usage from the frontcourt players. Neither Lonzo nor KCP are great scoring threats, so they can take advantage of the extra attention paid to their frontcourt comrades.
The Lakers’ roster moves since Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka took over the front office in February 2017 have pointed to a quicker brand of basketball spearheaded by multi-skilled frontcourt players, and pass-friendly players across the board. These multi-positional players are at a premium in the NBA and the Lakers should continue presenting them increased opportunities to improve.
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They’re giving the freedom to their young frontcourt players to expand their games, and each has in their own way, from Ingram’s handles and passing to Kuzma’s shooting and offensive prowess to playing Randle at the 5 more, allowing him to utilize his quickness against slower bigs. It doesn’t always look pretty, but the frontcourt revolution within the Lakers has been thrilling to watch this season.