Sometimes, teams can be good defensively despite not having any All-Defense caliber players. Sometimes, teams struggle on defense despite having high-level defenders. The Los Angeles Lakers are terrible on defense and they don't have any high-level defenders. I'll go on a limb and say that's the worst option of the three.
When everyone's healthy, the Lakers roll out a lineup of Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura, LeBron James, and Deandre Ayton. That lineup has played just 85 minutes together this season, so it's hard to determine what's real and what's a product of a small sample size. But that group has a defensive rating of 123, which would be a point worse than the 30th-ranked Washington Wizards.
Unfortunately, that trend will probably continue for that group — and the Lakers team in general. The starting lineup will probably be dominant enough offensively to offset that, but when one or two of the team's Big 3 is on the bench, it's not like they're being replaced on the court by elite defenders.
Marcus Smart and Jarred Vanderbilt are both plus-defenders (and there's a real argument for Smart replacing Rui in the starting lineup going forward) but neither is dominant enough individually to really make a difference when the four other players they're sharing the court with are usually defensive liabilities.
Lakers have a lockdown defender deficiency
In his prime, LeBron James was that high-level, do-it-all defender. In year 23, he's not expected to be that presence anymore. Boxing out every once in a while would be fine, in my opinion, but I won't nitpick. The fact that we're still watching LeBron produce at this level as he approaches 41 years is hard to fathom.
Meanwhile, Deandre Ayton shows us about once a month that he could be a high-level defender, but he's not really interested in doing that every night.
So here we are; it's nearly 2026, and Marcus Smart remains the best defensive player on a team that hopes to win an NBA title. That probably won't play — leaving the Lakers to scour the trade market for any defensive difference-makers.
Keon Ellis of the Sacramento Kings is the most obvious target. Maybe Zaccharie Risacher is acquirable from the Hawks, but his defensive impact is still more hypothetical than tangible.
I'm not sure who the target (or targets) will actually be for the Lakers, but the 25th-ranked defense is simply not a sustainable recipe for a playoff run. We can try to convince ourselves that when this team really starts trying on defense they'll be fine, but... That seems slightly far-fetched. Or extremely far-fetched.