1. The Los Angeles Lakers need to rotate the big three minutes more
I use the term “big three” lightly considering Russell Westbrook has been playing horribly this season.
The best version of the Los Angeles Lakers is one where Frank Vogel properly balances the minutes of all three men, and realistically, only plays two of them together at a time. The floor spacing of having all three on the court at the same time is horrid and that is what led to Anthony Davis being such an awful jump shooter (more on that later).
The Lakers will not be able to completely stagger the minutes as they probably won’t have the gusto to bench Russell Westbrook at the start of the game. However, once the team gets into the flow of the rotation, we really should see only two of these stars on the court at one time with the other resting.
This is a good way to at least keep one of the stars on the court at any given time and in crunch time, the Lakers could use this rotation strategy to get Russell Westbrook off the court. As big of a name as he has, the Lakers’ best crunchtime lineup is one without him in it.
Frank Vogel has already planted these seeds considering he sat Russell Westbrook at the end of the game against the Indiana Pacers last week. Until Westbrook figures it out and proves that he is not a nuisance in crunch time then that should be the reality moving forward.