Los Angeles Lakers: 3 potential starting lineups in 2019-20
By Amaar Burton
3. Starting with a bang
- PG – LeBron James
- SG – Danny Green
- SF – Kyle Kuzma
- PF – Anthony Davis
- C – DeMarcus Cousins
The 2018-19 Lakers had a bad habit of falling behind early in games and having to play catch-up the rest of the way.
One of the many problems with that is after exerting so much energy just trying to come back, a team may not have enough in the tank to close the deal and win the game.
The 2019-20 Lakers are going to look very different and should play a different style. One way to avoid past mistakes is to construct a starting lineup with the most offensive firepower possible.
Flipping the script and getting up on opponents early would take a lot of pressure off the Lakers and put it on the other team to catch up.
LeBron, Davis, Kuzma and Cousins are all individually capable of averaging 20-plus points per game — although it very likely won’t happen while they’re on the same team. Kuzma’s career-high for a single game is 41 points, while the other three have cracked 50-plus in their careers.
Green even dropped 33 in an NBA game once upon a time. He’s not an elite scorer, but he is an elite shooter who knocked down 45.5 percent of his 3-pointers with the Toronto Raptors last season.
Any time multiple stars who are big-time scorers join forces, there will be questions about whether they can share the basketball and share the spotlight. When it’s two big men, predictions will be made that they’ll clog up the paint and get in each other’s way.
Davis and Cousins never really played a whole season together for their brief time as teammates with the New Orleans Pelicans, but when they had something close to that in 2017-18, Davis averaged 28.1 points and Cousins averaged 25.2 points before an Achilles injury ended his season.
LeBron’s loudest critics accuse him of being a ball-hog, but he may also be the most skilled passer in the world.
As he approaches his 35th birthday, LeBron is smart enough to know that with this lineup, it would be best to utilize that skill and relieve himself from such a heavy scoring responsibility.
The question is whether his ego — or the habits he’s formed over his career — will allow for that to actually happen.