JJ Redick finally switched things up in the frontcourt on Wednesday night. There were no Kevon Looney minutes off the bench. Instead, the Los Angeles Lakers head coach finally acknowledged Jarred Vanderbilt's existence and let him loose. The results justified that decision tenfold.
The Lakers won a hard-fought 103-87 ball game over the Los Angeles Clippers despite the notable absences of Luka Doncic and Ziaire Williams. A big reason for that was the Vanderbilt minutes. Vando was a whopping +22 off the bench. That only trailed Collin Sexton (+23) for the team-high.
There was nothing to speak of in the scoring department for Vanderbilt, tallying zero points in 21 minutes. However, the expected energy, hustle, and defense that Vando is otherwise good for was there. That resulted in seven rebounds, plenty of good switchability on defense, and strong minutes on the whole for the Lakers forward.
Vanderbilt was a big enough positive that he received praise from those sharing the court with him. Sexton hyped him up after the game was over.
Sexton said of Vanderbilt: "Vando is somebody that is always going to stay ready. ... He came in and brought that juice right away. I feel like he was a huge, huge impact on us winning."
The Jarred Vanderbilt experiment worked to perfection for the Lakers
It was just a few days ago that discussions around here were being had about Vanderbilt. The general thought was after all the struggles from Looney, why not give Vando a shot at this point?
Maybe Redick reads the site, or maybe this was just common sense for everyone. Either way, we got it and the results offered plenty of encouragement. Vanderbilt was a bolt of energy for everyone he played with.
The specific frontcourt combination of Vando being paired with Sandro Mamukelashvili has been intriguing since the offseason. The pairing offset each other's weaknesses quite nicely. That is a theory no longer. On Wednesday, it looked like the truth.
Kevon Looney may be glued to the Lakers bench moving forward
After seeing the success of Vanderbilt with that second unit, how does one look back to Looney with any form of confidence?
This is still a small sample size of basketball. However, the struggles from the Lakers backup center have been persistent throughout any stretches of playing time for him. Looney has been bad, and Vanderbilt just came in showing far better functionality.
The veteran center is still a high IQ player. You can tell Looney knows where he needs to be on the floor. It is a matter of his physical limitations not always allowing him to get there. As long as that keeps being true, there are clearly better options for those minutes.
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