Los Angeles Lakers regular season grades: Backcourt players

Lance Stephenson: D

Defensive Real Plus-Minus: -1.25 (10th)

Field-Goal Percentage Differential: +1.0 (10th)

Defensive Rating: 107.6 (7th)

Offensive Rating: 102.9 (11th)

On/Off Offensive Differential: -4.1 (11th)

Traditional Stats: 7 PPG, 3 RPG, 2 APG, .426 FG%

Lance Stephenson was signed by the Lakers with the hopes that he’d bring defensive intensity to the team and that he would help LeBron James take over some of the playmaking responsibilities on offense. The Lakers hopes never came to fruition.

He played hard on defense, but most of the time when he was on the court he forgot that Luke Walton ran a switch-happy defense. There were countless times during the season that he left his man wide-open simply because he could never wrap his head around the Lakers defensive schemes.

His confusion on D was so bad that Walton had no choice but to limit his minutes. Lance only averaged 16.5 minutes per game, which isn’t a good look for a player like Stephenson who’s 28 years old and in his prime.

His offense wasn’t much better than his defense. He was brought in to be a distributor, but he only averaged two assists per game. Usually, when Lance got the ball in his hands on offense, he’d either jack up a quick 3-pointer or he’d dribble for a few seconds before hoisting a contested mid-range jumper. Only 24% of his shots came within 0-3 feet of the rim, which is a travesty, considering how tight of a dribble he has and how talented he is at blowing by his man.

Lance Stephenson gets a D grade because he was one of the worst players on the Lakers during the 2018-2019 season.