1. Trading for Dennis Schroder
First off, let’s just picture something that sounds beautiful: Dennis Schroder and Montrezl Harrell manning the second unit for the Los Angeles Lakers. After having to deal with LeBron James and Anthony Davis teams are not going to get a break as they have to face Schroder and Harrell off the bench.
We saw how lethal Lou Williams and Harrell were as a tandem last season and that was with the team not utilizing Harrell to his best abilities defensively and with Williams’ terrible defense. Now imagine that with a plus-defender in Schroder and a better Harrell.
The trade itself was fantastic. The Lakers got rid of someone who they easily replaced with Wesley Matthews and only had to pay the 28th overall pick in the draft to get a legitimate difference-maker at the point guard position.
Schroder is the perfect player to act as the second ball-handler behind LeBron James and he is someone who can be effective off the ball as well. He is essentially going to be a significantly better version of Rajon Rondo for the Lakers.
Schroder averaged 18.9 points, 4.0 assists and 3.6 rebounds per game last season while shooting 46.9% from the field, 38.5% from beyond the arc and 83.9% from the free-throw line. Defensively, he posted a 1.04 defensive PIPM. For comparison’s sake, Rondo posted a -1.11 D-PIPM and Williams posted a -2.32 D-PIPM.
Only 11 point guards in the league posted a better D-PIPM last season and two of them are his Laker teammates — LeBron James and Alex Caruso.