Los Angeles Lakers: Three role players the front office should target
Backup Center:
Here are the five best backup center choices for the Lakers:
- JaVale McGee (2018-2019 salary: $2.4 million)
- Joakim Noah (2018-2019 salary: $1.7 million)
- Nerlens Noel (2018-2019 salary: $1.9 million) He has a player option that he’ll almost certainly opt out of.
- Kyle O’Quinn (2018-2019 salary: $4.4 million)
- Tyson Chandler (2018-2019 salary: $2.1 million)
Tyson Chandler was a great pickup by the Lakers last year, but he’ll be 37 years old before the 2019-2020 season begins and he showed that his advanced age was a problem during 2019 by only playing in seven games after the All-Star break, because of nagging injuries.
Kyle O’Quinn had good advanced stats for the Indiana Pacers last year. He had a 102 defensive rating and a 106 offensive rating. With that said, he only averaged eight minutes per game during the 2018-2019 season, which is too little time on the floor. The Lakers need a backup center who’ll play with energy for 15 to 20 minutes per contest.
There are only three real backup center options for the Lakers: JaVale McGee, Joakim Noah, and Nerlens Noel.
Here are their 2018-2019 statistics:
- JaVale McGee: 22.3 MPG, 12 PPG, 7.5 RPG, 2 BPG, .083 3P%, 104 DEFRTG, 117 OFFRTG, 5.9 WS
- Joakim Noah: 16.5 MPG, 7.1 PPG, 5.7 RPG, 0.7 BPG, .000 3P%, 105 DEFRTG, 113 OFFRTG, 2.2 WS
- Nerlens Noel: 13.7 MPG, 4.9 PPG, 4.2 RPG, 1.2 BPG, .000 3P%. 99 DEFRTG, 122 OFFRTG, 4.3 WS
During the 2018-2019 season, Joakim Noah had a nice bounce-back year for the Memphis Grizzlies, but he’s only played in 124 out of a possible 328 total games throughout the last four seasons.
Couple that with the fact that he’ll be 34 next year, and it’s easy to see that Noah’s too big of an injury risk for the Lakers to sign as their backup center.
JaVale McGee and Nerlens Noel are the two best backup center choices for LA.
McGee is a better offensive player than Noel because he can be devastating attacking the rim as the roll man out of pick-and-rolls. However, the Lakers aren’t going to run many offensive sets for their backup center. Instead, what the Purple and Gold need is a big man who can man the middle on defense and make life miserable for the opposing team’s offense while the Lakers starters rest.
Nerlens Noel was clearly a better defensive player than JaVale McGee last year. He had an absurd 99 defensive rating as the Oklahoma City Thunders backup center/power forward throughout the 2018-2019 regular season.
Noel also came in 4th out of 514 qualified players last season in ESPN’s defensive real plus-minus at 3.83.
Nerlens Noel weighs in at 220 pounds, which is too light to play heavy starters minutes at the center position (DeWayne Dedmon, for example, weighs 245 lbs.), but he showed last year that he was the best defensive, backup big man in the NBA, which is exactly the type of player the Lakers need.