Los Angeles Lakers: 3-guard sets growing in frequency

The Los Angeles Lakers are using plenty of three-guard sets to cope with their lack of wings.

Throughout the 2017-18 NBA regular season, the Los Angeles Lakers have been one of the weakest teams in terms of their depth at the wing. The Lakers came into the season with Brandon Ingram, Corey Brewer and Kyle Kuzma (who’s best deployed at the 4) listed as small forwards, leaving little room for injury or dip in production at this position.

Unfortunately, the Lakers’ lack of wing depth is on full display at the moment. Ingram suffered another groin injury and is to be reevaluated next week. Brewer was bought out of his contract and now is getting regular playing time with his college coach Billy Donovan and the Oklahoma City Thunder, leaving Kuzma the last man standing for the time being.

To make matters worse, Josh Hart, one of the Lakers’ larger guards at 6’5″, 209 pounds, fractured the fourth metacarpal bone on his left hand after a collision with Gary Payton II during practice . Hart was etching a large role in the rotation, and will miss 4-6 weeks, draining another wing resource for the closing stretch.

To counter their lack of wings, head coach Luke Walton opted to bring Kuzma into the starting lineup,rounding out the frontcourt next to Julius Randle and Brook Lopez. Kuzma has struggled with his shot as of late (shooting 37.9 percent over last 10 games), but Walton didn’t hesitate when inserting him back as a starter despite playing next to two bigs, something he hasn’t done often this season.

Playing this frontcourt doesn’t affect the Lakers spacing offensively, but it does limit how dynamic they can be with fewer players capable of making a play off the dribble. Coach Walton wants to deploy as many ball-handlers as possible in order to maintain his desired levels of playing uptempo.

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To ensure their pace stays fast, Walton is playing more three-guard sets, especially when their bench is on the court. The changes to the starting lineup and injuries have created voids on the Lakers’ second unit, leading Walton to experiment more with his rotations. Examples include Isaiah Thomas, Tyler Ennis and Lonzo Ball sharing the court simultaneously, or Lonzo, IT and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope logging minutes together.

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Those two lineup examples offer the positives and negatives of these three-guard sets. IT and Lonzo have had little trouble finding their footing together, but the third guard next to them is so vital to their success.

I lobbied for Ennis to take on more minutes early in the season when the Los Angeles Lakers were struggling for open shots and still think he can be a trustworthy player deep in a rotation, but playing him next to Lonzo and IT (mostly him) leaves you too weak on the defensive end without the offensive firepower to balance it out.

Where Ennis hurts a three-guard lineup, KCP is probably the perfect complement to IT and Lonzo. KCP still gives you great effort on defense, and is strong enough from the 3-point line to warrant attention from defenders. This gives IT space to operate off the dribble and shooters to kick to. More importantly, playing KCP gives coach Walton the ability to hide IT defensively with KCP and Lonzo more than capable of defending the top two wings.

The Lakers won’t use Ennis much moving forward, and I wouldn’t mind seeing Payton take his minutes given his defensive traits, but there has been success when Lonzo and IT are flanked by a large guard like Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.

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The Los Angeles Lakers have only played a couple games with these rotation changes and have continued to play really well in 2018. They have had success all season playing three-guard sets, but injuries and roster moves could see their success limited until Brandon Ingram and Josh Hart return from injury.

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