The Los Angeles Lakers are still in the infancy stages of the Luka Doncic era in Hollywood. As such, there is a laundry list of questions that the key figures in Los Angeles will need to figure out.
Doncic, LeBron James, and Austin Reaves will need to figure out how they split ball-handling duties as the primary initiators of the offense as the 2024-25 NBA season progresses. Rob Pelinka's biggest task awaits him in the 2025 offseason, as the Lakers general manager will look to fill the void in the frontcourt. JJ Redick may actually have the most pressing question regarding this Lakers team facing him.
Redick has done a tremendous job early on trying to help answer the question around the stars in Los Angeles and has even managed to scheme around Jaxson Hayes being the only consistently reliable center option on the team. On top of all that, and more, being on his plate, the Lakers head coach will need to answer one key question regarding the starting lineup moving forward.
Dorian Finney-Smith or Rui Hachimura?
Doncic, James, and Reaves are firmly locked in as starters in Los Angeles. That is obvious. Hayes serving as the starting center is a necessity, even if the athletic big man is only being penciled in for about 20 minutes a night. There is one spot remaining among that starting group and conversations about whether Rui Hachimura or Dorian Finney-Smith should occupy that role have emerged.
Firstly, this is not a conversation of patching things up, or anything of the sort. Both Finney-Smith and Hachimura offer strong options as starters. This is one of those positive types of problems that good teams have, where both guys offer their own strong boost in their given contributions.
It is also important to highlight that as things have marched onwards in the Doncic era, it appears the go-to lineup Redick leans to when needed features both players. The small ball unit of Doncic-Reaves-DFS-James-Hachimura has quickly emerged as the prominent group that will determine how this season goes for the Lakers.
Both players will figure into key roles within the rotation regardless of who is officially running as a starter. That being said, there is still solid reasoning for why identifying one of the two as their fifth and final starter is important.
Jovan Buha of The Athletic painted the picture well on a recent episode of Buha's Block. The Lakers reporter argued for bringing Hachimura off the bench and allowing Finney-Smith to slot in with the starting unit.
"There's no reason why he [Hachimura] can't continue to have a similar offensive impact off the bench," Buha commented. "He's still gonna be playing with Luka, ... LeBron, ... Austin. They're still gonna use him in the same ways. If anything ... he gets a little bit more of an offensive opportunity and could pick on some bench units a little bit more."
Buha went on to also make the argument that Hachimura has been used as more of a five defensively than a three. Thus, the Lakers writer argued that Finney-Smith has a skill set that fits more naturally beside James, Reaves, and Hayes.
Buha pointed out some lineup data to compare the impact of Hachimura and Finney-Smith beside those three, omitting Doncic due to his short time in Los Angeles. Adding Rui to those three, the Lakers outscored opponents by 0.9 points per 100 possessions. Replace Rui with Dorian and that number jumps up to 5.8.
The sample size is naturally smaller with Finney-Smith, but Buha pointed out something that has been covered on this site before, the Lakers wing is a plus-minus monster. The data points out what feels obvious, Finney-Smith has the needed skill set to round out the starters.
That call is ultimately Redick's to make at the end of the day. The Lakers can, and probably will, tinker with the lineup based on matchups once the NBA Playoffs roll around. With 26 games remaining, Redick and his staff will be given every opportunity to assess the situation.