1. Montrezl Harrell
There is one former Laker who has stood out above the rest this season and that is Montrezl Harrell. Harrell was extremely frustrating to watch in the purple and gold and all the warning signs that Clipper fans sent to Laker fans ended up being true.
Harrell cannot stretch the floor and does not play good enough defense to warrant being out there in a playoff series. It felt like the Lakers could have mitigated the problem by putting him next to Anthony Davis and that did not really do much.
By the time the Lakers were eliminated from the NBA Playoffs, it was clear that they had to move on from Harrell. Harrell, likely because he is a Klutch Sports client, decided he would still help the team out by accepting his player option and allowing the team to trade him instead of hitting free agency.
That might have been the best decision that he made for himself as Harrell has already increased his potential free-agent value thus far this season. Harrell is averaging 18.1 points and 9.3 rebounds per game, and more importantly, is playing pretty solid defense.
Harrell has posted an absurd 6.1 Box Plus/Minus thus far this season. To compare that to his peers, Harrell ranks sixth in the entire league in BPM with at least 250 minutes played. The five players ahead of him are Nikola Jokic, Jimmy Butler, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry.
Quite the list.