The Los Angeles Lakers have a unique roster structure with three ball-dominant perimeter players who both score and facilitate at star-caliber levels. It's an extraordinary luxury, but it's also an approach that creates the risk of becoming too predictable to sustainably overcome elite opponents.
Thankfully, Marcus Smart has emerged as the fourth playmaker on a team that needed an assertive veteran to ensure the ball isn't staying in the same three pairs of hands on every possession.
There admittedly isn't much of a precedent for what the Lakers are attempting to build. This isn’t the first time a team has had three ball-dominant star-caliber wings, but the examples of it succeeding are admittedly few and far between.
One of the issues that said teams have previously encountered is an overreliance on three players and the predictability that inevitably emerges on offense. That's exactly where Smart comes into play as a ball handler and playmaker.
According to Benjamin Royer of The Orange County Register, Lakers head coach JJ Redick acknowledged the importance of Smart's offensive contributions when discussing what's been missed in his absence.
"You need Smart for his ball handling, you need Smart for his defense, you need Rui for his shooting. Those pieces are important to complement everybody."
It may not be the element of Smart's game that fans first think of, but his ability to assert himself as a playmaker keeps the Lakers honest and the flow of the offense from stagnating.
Marcus Smart ensures Lakers don't exclusively play through Big Three
Smart has put together a strong first season in Los Angeles. He's currently averaging 9.5 points, 2.8 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.4 steals, and 1.6 three-point field goals made per game, ranking No. 4 on the Lakers in assists and No. 6 in scoring.
Though his production may not jump off of the page, Smart has been as vocal and assertive as ever in ensuring that his impact is felt on both ends of the floor.
Clearly, Luka Doncic, LeBron James, and Austin Reaves will always look like the best options to play through on paper. Games aren’t won in our imaginations or thought processes, however, but instead at the final destination of encounters that are flush with ebbs and flows.
As such, from time to time, the best choice is to give opposing defenses a look they weren’t expecting to ensure they can’t learn to craft their sets to anticipate the offense.
Big Three is elite, but Lakers are better with multiple points of entry
A counterpoint would be that the trio of Doncic, James, and Reaves is talented enough to overcome just about every defense imaginable. Where talent and reality intersect, however, is a world where cold streaks happen, film is watched endlessly by those whose job it is to contain top-tier players, and four losses in seven games is all it takes to end a season.
With top-tier players across the court who can generate explosive offense of their own, even the slightest bit of predictability can prove disastrous.
Thankfully, the Lakers have Smart to help create the sense of balance that could otherwise be lost. As a respected veteran who won’t drift too far into the background, Smart's aggressive mentality when seeking out shots and touches means teams can never truly know what to expect.
That may ultimately prove to be the difference between the Lakers only going as far as their stars can take them and ultimately being a strong enough team to adequately support the top talent.