3.) Frank Vogel’s rotations and the staggering of his two star players.
The Lakers have one of the more unconventional lineups in the NBA, and many were wondering how new coach Frank Vogel was going to handle getting all of these pieces to fit in a cohesive way.
The most important thing Vogel has been doing is also the simplest thing — staggering. It seems like a no-brainer, if you have two superstar level players, you should make a concerted effort to keep at least one of them on the floor as much as possible.
But not every coach in the league subscribes to this philosophy, but the ones who do, such as Steve Kerr with Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, or Mike D’Antoni with James Harden and Chris Paul, have been rewarded with team success both in the regular season and the playoffs.
Vogel has been vocal about staggering the two and has so far, said all of the right things in regards to roster construction and lineup management, which is incredibly encouraging as previous head coach Luke Walton didn’t believe in this mantra as much.
In addition, Rajon Rondo has also been finally staggered with LeBron after the entirety of last season and the debacle that caused. Now with Rondo coming off the bench, his weaknesses are mitigated, and he can have full reign of the bench unit, along with Anthony Davis, who have developed chemistry when the two played together in New Orleans.