Lakers head coach Darvin Ham’s plan for Patrick Beverley is abysmal
By Jason Reed
The Los Angeles Lakers have a collection of guards on the roster heading into the 2022-23 season that has left the overall roster unbalanced. While the wing options are not great this offseason, the Lakers still have free-agent options but instead are loading up with a roster that is full of point guards.
This is coming off of a season where the main disappointment stemmed from a point guard in Russell Westbrook. In addition to Westbrook, the team had a returning Kendrick Nunn, who did not play last season, as well as a second-year guard in Austin Reaves.
That was not enough for the Lakers. Los Angeles decided to trade for Patrick Beverley (which is still a smart move) and then double-down on top of that by signing Dennis Schroder. This all makes sense if the plan is to trade Westbrook or tell him to go home and eventually trade him.
But that does not seem to be the plan. Instead, it appears that new head coach Darvin Ham and his staff have a plan for Beverley and their influx of guards that simply does not make any sense (h/t Marc Stein, Substack).
So let me get this straight… Westbrook and Schroder are the point guards while Beverley, Nunn, Reaves and Walker will be the wings… got it.
If Darvin Ham does this with Patrick Beverley and co. then the Lakers are in trouble.
The Lakers’ solution to having a lack of wings is simply signing another point guard and then pretending that an already established point guard is actually a wing instead. Beverley and Nunn are six-foot-one! Austin Reaves is six-foot-five but is only in his second season and is not a wing.
This is the kind of roster construction you see in a lower European league team or on a national team that loses to the United States by 50 points in the Olympics. Despite utilizing size to win their last championship, the Lakers are going the complete other direction and are getting smaller!
It would be one thing if the Lakers actually had shooters on the roster but that is not the case. Not only is there a lack of shooters, but most of these players are horrible defenders. The one good defender the team has in Beverley is going to have serious mismatches if the team is asking him to consistently guard other teams’ wings all season.
And that is not even considering the impact Westbrook is going to have as he continues his same play style of selfish basketball, bad defense and poor shooting. The roster construction is so poor in Los Angeles that it is forcing Darvin Ham to do absurd things.
Another option that can free up minutes is to simply tell Westbrook to go home until they sort out a trade for him but the Lakers don’t seem intent on doing that.