Los Angeles Lakers: 5 reasons they are lucky Detroit Pistons turned down Alex Caruso

5. Their defense would have instantly gotten worse

It is an overused adage that numbers do not lie, but right now Caruso has the tenth best defensive rating in the league, and it is hard to argue against that statistic. He has easily been the Lakers’ most consistent defender all season, and at one point during the year head coach Frank Vogel called him an elite defender.

He even went as far to tell Mike Trudell of Spectrum Sportsnet that,

"“Caruso is a star defender. I think he’s elite. When you study him on tape or just watch him in summer workouts, you see he has pretty good feet and good length. But there are a lot of 6’5″ defenders that you think should be great defenders cause they’re long, but they’re not good defenders. But Alex is. He has great instincts and that’s the biggest thing with him.”"

This is high praise coming from a coach known to pride himself on the defensive side of the floor. That is probably why he is confident enough to play Caruso in big moments and at the end of games.

Derrick Rose, on the other hand, has the 62nd worst defensive rating in the league, and he would have been a major let down trying to replace Caruso on that end of the floor. Caruso is always in passing lanes and diving for loose balls, and in even in his prime Rose was never seen as a guy that is going to scrap for a loose ball or get his hands dirty.

In almost 10 fewer minutes per game, Caruso averages more steals than Rose. Caruso is one of only four players to average more than a steal per game while playing fewer than 20 minutes per game.