If you Venn diagrammed the strengths and weaknesses of Austin Reaves and Luka Doncic, you might just have two complete circles with zero overlap. The near-perfect alignment of their skillsets allows for incredible offense but also creates some glaring defensive liabilities for the Los Angeles Lakers.
This has, of course, been known and acknowledged by everyone at this point, but folks are still bringing it up. When Max Kellerman got to gabbing about the Lakers' backcourt on a recent episode of the Game Over with Max Kellerman and Rich Paul podcast, Kellerman mentioned there's some "redundancy" with the pairing and even wondered whether that should make L.A. consider dealing Doncic. (And in case there's any confusion out there, no, it absolutely should not.)
The fit between Reaves and Doncic is clearly imperfect, but the Lakers have known this for a while and remain committed to Reaves while trying to build things up around Doncic. As they probably should be.
Austin Reaves and Luka Doncic aren't a perfect fit, but it's the best combo L.A. can build around.
While this hasn't been a disaster year for the Lakers, few things have gone according to plan. This has basically been a .500 team since the start of December, and it's a below-average team for the season by net efficiency (minus-0.8 net rating, 17th overall, per NBA.com).
You know what is working, though? The Doncic-Reaves pairing. Or at least, this combo was crushing it before the latter was lost to a calf strain on Christmas.
In the 452 minutes this perimeter pairing has played together, the Purple and Gold have come out 7.3 points ahead of the opposition per 100 possessions. To give that some context, only the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder have better than a plus-7.3 net rating.
Buying into the viability of this combo, then, doesn't require this imaginative act. The Lakers can trust that it will work because they already have the evidence that it is working.
They just have to figure out how to assemble the right pieces around it, which is clearly still a work in progress. And, sure, they should keep their ears open in case the right trade offer gets sent along (for Reaves, not Doncic, to be clear).
The redundancy alone isn't a reason to torpedo this twosome, though. It just means L.A. really has to ace all of the decisions made with its supporting cast for this to work.
That's tricky to do—particularly with a limited trade budget—but it also isn't something that must be solved before the trade deadline or even by this offseason. If the Lakers re-sign Reaves, they'll get several cracks at making it work with him and Doncic.