The Los Angeles Lakers have wrapped up their preseason, however, questions still remain about who will be their starting five.
With the preseason officially over for the Los Angeles Lakers, all of their attention will now be on the regular season. Their first regular season game will be against the Los Angeles Clippers, but there are still some questions about what the starting lineup will look like to start the season.
In the first game, the Lakers will be without projected shooting guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, as he will be serving his one-game suspension. While it is yet to be determined who will start for Pope in the season-openers, we know he will be a starter moving forward.
In addition to Caldwell-Pope being a starter, the Lakers also appear to have Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, and Brook Lopez locked in the starting five.
Where things have become tricky for the Lakers is at the power forward position. It was assumed that Julius Randle was going to be the starter for the Lakers, however, Luke Walton has been using Larry Nance Jr. as the starter next to Lopez.
Luke Walton emphasized again that the starters are not crystalized, said they’re going to get some more scrimmaging in this week, too.
— Serena Winters (@SerenaWinters) October 14, 2017
While Nance didn’t overly impress in the preseason, he and Lopez together seemed to be a combination that Walton liked. Off the bench, Randle really thrived, as he was one of the best players for the Lakers in the preseason.
Considering that many second-units in the NBA generally play smaller lineups, the Lakers could be thinking about using Randle at the five with Kyle Kuzma playing the four off the bench together. These two were the best two scorers for the Lakers this season, and most of that damage came on the court together off the bench.
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If Walton does indeed stick with a starting lineup that has Nance at the power forward, that doesn’t mean that he will be getting the most minutes out of the three power forwards. With some scrimmages and practices still to have before the regular season starts, Walton will likely continue to pair up different players in different units to find something that he likes.