Los Angeles Lakers: Dion Waiters deserves more minutes than J.R. Smith

2. J.R. Smith was not good when we last saw him

If you follow our work here at Lake Show Life then you know that J.R. Smith was not great when we last saw him play in the NBA. Smith is a three and D player who was not shooting the three-point shot very well and was playing pretty shoddy defense as well.

If you want to read an in-depth breakdown with the stats that show how bad Smith was when we last saw him you can check this article out here.

Not to mention it has been a really long time since we have J.R. Smith play professional basketball. The counterpoint to that is that he has looked great in workouts, but does that even matter? By the time July 30 rolls around it will have been just under 20 months since Smith last played in an NBA game.

Waiters is in a similar situation as he has only played four games this season. However, he already got a chance to work out with the Lakers prior to the hiatus and had the entire break to get back into game shape.

As for Smith, while I am sure he stayed in shape, he did not know that he was going to play in Orlando until a few weeks ago. I would go out on a limb and say that Waiters had much more preparation in the hiatus than Smith did.

And at least Waiters was still decent the last time we saw him, Smith was not. Waiters is also still only 28 years old while Smith is 35. Waiters still has his prime in front of him, Smith has absolutely passed his.

Unless Smith comes out firing and completely proves me wrong and looks fantastic, I would not want to see him playing more than garbage-time minutes in the playoffs.