Which five players should close games for the Los Angeles Lakers next season?
The 2008-2009 championship Lakers squad was one of the first NBA teams to play out the end of fourth quarters with a closing unit that was different from its starting five players. That rendition of the Purple and Gold started games with super-sub, Lamar Odom on the bench, but L.O. always finished out the fourth quarter alongside Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Derek Fisher, and typically Trevor Ariza.
A few years later in 2015, the Golden State Warriors marched through the playoffs, eventually winning their first championship behind their vaunted “Death Lineup.” The Warriors took what the Lakers did quietly with Lamar Odom throughout 2009 and screamed about it from a mountain top by moving starting power forward, Draymond Green up a spot to center and then asking 6th man, Andre Iguodala to close games.
Over the last four years the Warriors have changed the way the game of basketball is played in several different ways, but the notion that a team doesn’t have to start games with its best five-man unit has been the one idea that nobody could have predicted would spread across the entire NBA.
Now most teams throughout the association have followed suit and they also have unique closing units that aren’t just generically made up of their five starters.
Next season, the Lakers will almost certainly be one of the many teams that end games with their own distinctive closing lineup.
Let’s look at the two best closing unit options Frank Vogel will have at his disposal next season and then finally come to a decision about which one is the best choice for the Lakers.