In the wake of a four-game losing streak, Lakers coach Darvin Ham made a change to his starting lineup for tonight’s game at Oklahoma City, writes Khobi Price of The Orange County Register. Ham replaced D’Angelo Russell with Jarred Vanderbilt, giving L.A. a super-sized lineup with all the starters standing at least 6’6″.
Vanderbilt, who missed the first 20 games with inflammation in his left heel, is making his first start of the season. He admitted earlier this week that the heel is still “naturally limiting” what he’s able to do, but he told Price at Saturday’s shootaround that he feels ready to play expanded minutes.
“Physically I feel good,” Vanderbilt said. “It’s been in a few games now, so I’ve been able to try to get some rhythm and kind of catch a routine of how this year is gonna go as far as me physically and my body and maintaining throughout the season. I think I’m physically ready.”
Ham said after Wednesday’s loss at Chicago that lineup changes are “always an option,” Price adds. With the Lakers skidding after the in-season tournament and falling back to .500 for the season, Ham decided the time was right and made the move to place a greater emphasis on defense.
“When you play great defense, it makes the offense a little bit easier,” he explained. “And so just wanted to lean into that side of the ball. Obviously, we’ve been struggling in a lot of first quarters this season so we feel like being a little bit bigger on the perimeter, more athletic gives us a chance to really have this go in our favor this time.”
There’s more from the Pacific Division:
- Clippers coach Tyronn Lue doesn’t want to let two lopsided losses kill the momentum his team built up earlier this month, per Andrew Greif of The Los Angeles Times. L.A. surrendered 145 points, its highest total of the season, while falling to Boston on Saturday in a game that was out of reach by the middle of the third quarter. Combined with Thursday’s loss at Oklahoma City, it represents a rough spot for a team that had been climbing up the Western Conference standings. “We told our team after the game, these last two games, don’t let it discourage what we’ve built and what we’ve been doing over the last three, four weeks,” Lue said.
- De’Aaron Fox moved past Mike Bibby on Friday night to become the Kings‘ career leader in assists since the team moved to Sacramento, per Jason Anderson of The Sacramento Bee. “He’s just getting started,” coach Mike Brown said. “I think the guy is 25, 26, something like that, and he’s already broken that record. There’s going to be a lot of records that go down during his time here.”
- Suns guard Bradley Beal talks to Marc J. Spears of Andscape about his frustrating battle with injuries and how it has played into the team’s disappointing start.
Dlo is best used as a gunner off the bench…
D’Angelo Russell is definitely a player that is best served as the 6th or 7th man off the bench. He’s a solid offensive player but a defensive liability. We don’t need a player like that in the starting lineup.
The floor is going to be less spaced. But Jarred Vanderbilt being put in the starting lineup is going to bring in way more defense. Jarred Vanderbilt is one of the most versatile defensive players and can guard four positions. He’s the type of player we need in the starting lineup.
Lakers showed why OKC needs another big. They bullied them on the boards and inside. Chet won’t be physically there for 2-3 more years at best. When Chet sits they used Kenrich and Bertans as the center. Jaylin didn’t play but he isn’t physical enough either. They couldn’t get inside to get easy baskets, too many 3s. You know if OKC and Minn finish 1 & 2 the vet teams won’t care about the play in, they are going to bank on their experience.