Los Angeles Lakers: 3 Weaknesses heading into 2017-18 regular season
Rebounding
The Lakers biggest move this offseason was trading for Brook Lopez. It cost them one of their young building blocks, but it provides the Lakers with a ton of flexibility cap wise moving forward. They rid themselves of Timofey Mozgov’s albatross of a contract, while Lopez’s contract is expiring. In the process, they also weakened their rebounding.
Last season the Lakers had the 21st ranked rebounding differential in the NBA at -0.9. The 44.4 rebounds allowed per game ranked tied for 22nd. Their 43.5 rebounds per game ranked 17th. This is a number that may not improve with Lopez as the starting center.
Despite standing 7-feet tall, Lopez is not a great rebounder. He averaged only 5.4 rebounds per game last season. That would have put him third on the Lakers, but only because he played more minutes than last season’s centers Tarik Black and Mozgov.
Lopez had worse rebounding percentages than both of those players, registering a 9.6 percent compared to 17.2 for Black and 13.1 for Mozgov. Julius Randle and Larry Nance Jr., the two best rebounders for the Lakers last season on a per game basis, had rebounding percentages of 16.3 and 14.0 respectively.
Once again, the Lakers will be relying on Randle and Nance Jr. to carry the rebounding load. Lopez averages 7.1 rebounds per game in his career, but with his game becoming more perimeter oriented it would not be shocking to see him average fewer than that per game once again.