The Los Angeles Lakers are counting down the days until the team is fully healthy. According to reports from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Lakers should be getting both of their star players back some time at the beginning of May. Anthony Davis is expected back before LeBron James.
Things have not been great while the team has been hurt. The ship stayed afloat after Anthony Davis’ injury because of LeBron. However, once LeBron suffered a high-ankle sprain on March 20, things started to go bad.
Sure, the team recently had a great win over the Brooklyn Nets but that does not mask the team’s losing record since LeBron has been hurt. Counting the game in which LeBron got injured, the Lakers are 5-8 without the two stars.
Some players have stepped up with LeBron and AD, some have struggled. The best thing that has come from this stretch (outside of rest for LeBron and AD) is the fact that the role players have been tested.
And once the Los Angeles Lakers get healthy, some players will get a much smaller role.
A lot has changed since LeBron and AD last played together. The team has two new players (Andre Drummond and Ben McLemore) and the coaching staff has a new outlook on those on the roster. The rotation will not be the same once LeBron and AD return.
Here are the players who are going to lose the most minutes once the star players in Los Angeles return.
1. Markieff Morris
Markieff Morris started the season off horribly but has used this time to his advantage. He is one of the players on the Los Angeles Lakers that has improved with the stars hurt and it started once Anthony Davis was injured.
Since LeBron was injured Morris is averaging 27.3 minutes per game, which is 7.1 minutes more than his season average. That season average was lower before AD got hurt as well as Morris was getting around 15 minutes a game with both AD and LeBron healthy.
Despite his strong play, his playing time will reflect that number once the stars return. Morris is someone who can get hot and hit some big shots form beoynd the arc (as he did in the NBA Playoffs last year) but that does not warrant a big increase in playing time.
This is even more true now that the Lakers added depth at the center position in Andre Drummond. There is no longer the need for Morris to play small-ball center off the bench.
Morris will lose around 12 minutes played per game once the team is fully healthy and in playoff mode, which is a shame considering he has taken this chance to improve his play from the beginning of the season. That is just the nature of the beast, though.
2. Kyle Kuzma
Kyle Kuzma has missed two games while LeBron James has been hurt but when he does play he is getting significant playing time. Kuzma has been mildly disappointing during this stretch as well. This was a chance for him to step up and be the team’s leading scorer without LeBron and AD and that just has not been the case.
He is getting a lot of playing time and is taking a lot of shots but his efficiency has been terrible. In 10 games played without LeBron James, Kuzma is shooting 38.9% from the field and 27.7% from beyond the arc… in 8.3 attempts per game!
If Kuzma passed this test then you could make the case for him to stay at a similar minutes number once the team got healthy. There is a bit of roster redundancy with Kuzma, AD and LeBron, but strong play would have forced Frank Vogel to figure that out.
Kuzma has not earned the same playing time and he is undoubtedly going to get less playing time once the stars return. He is averaging 34.6 minutes per game without LeBron and AD and quite frankly, he probably should get fewer minutes per game than he was getting before the injuries.
I know there are some big Kuzma fans that read my work here at Lake Show Life but he has not played well in the 10 games without the stars. With the new additions and the strong play of Morris, I would play Kuzma around 25 minutes per game, almost 10 fewer than he is currently getting.
3. Wesley Matthews
Wesley Matthews is not directly impacted by LeBron James and Anthony Davis in the same way that Markieff Morris and Kyle Kuzma are. However, he is impacted by there being two more players added to a rotation that already has two more players that were not present beforeand.
Simply put: the four ‘additions’ in LeBron, AD, Drummond and McLemore are going to take away minutes from some of the role players and Matthews is going to be hit the hardest by that.
Matthews has been serviceable defensively but he has not had the offensive impact that was expected. He has been extremely inconsistent this season and is not the knock-down shooter that the Lakers were hoping for.
The addition of McLemore, who is shooting the ball well to start his Lakers tenure, makes it easier to reduce Matthews’ workload. Matthews is still the better defender, but with the likes of Alex Caruso, the Lakers might not really even need Matthews.
The ironic part is that Matthews is not even seeing an increase in minutes with LeBron and AD out. He is averaging 19.6 minutes per game in 10 games while averaging 20.1 minutes per game over the season.
He is essentially getting the exact same playing time and that its only going to shrink once LeBron James and Anthony Davis return and take up 70 minutes of the rotation.
Quite frankly, I would not be shocked if Matthews is not in the rotation at all in the NBA Playoffs.