Los Angeles Lakers: Ranking the free-agent signings by potential workload

1. Carmelo Anthony

Carmelo Anthony will get virtually identical minutes to Trevor Ariza in the same way that Kuzma and KCP got similar minutes last season. I give the edge to Carmelo because of his pedigree, his relationship with LeBron and his ability to hit shots.

Carmelo should probably be the Lakers’ sixth man in 2021 and probably won’t get much playing time in the crunch time lineup because of his defense. However, there is the route where the Lakers can go with a really big crunchtime lineup that can actually still space the floor.

A lineup of Westbrook, Ariza, Carmelo, LeBron and Davis could be a lot to handle. While it would have two players that are not great defensively in Westbrook and Carmelo, it would have a lot of size and three above-average defenders that could help suffocate.

That is Carmelo’s route to the closing lineup and either way he is going to get his playing time. He is the favorite to be the fourth-highest scorer unless Malik Monk goes off as he should average around 14-15 points per game.

This is a slightly bigger workload than he got with the Portland Trail Blazers last season. An extra four minutes per game is not going to make him way less efficient, especially in the regular season.

Carmelo is a candidate to get less playing time in the playoffs if his offense is not as good as expected since his defense is not the best.

But when it comes to the regular season, when the Lakers are going to try and limit LeBron and AD’s workload, Melo should get plenty of playing time.

All statistics courtesy of Basketball-Reference.