Since winning the NBA In-Season Tournament, the Los Angeles Lakers haven’t found much success on the court. They were 14-9 on December 9th when they defeated the Indiana Pacers for the championship and have struggled mightily since.
The Lakers are now in 10th place in the Western Conference with a record of 19-20, losing 11 out of their last 16 games. That has them tied with the 11th-place Utah Jazz as the season is quickly slipping away.
There is a lot that isn’t going right for Los Angeles right now, as head coach Darvin Ham has constantly been shuffling his rotation with players in and out of the lineup. He has yet to find a combination that works as no one is producing at a consistent level beyond LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
NBA NEWS & TRADE RUMORS: Austin Reaves & Los Angeles Lakers Updates
One of the players who has been struggling the most is Austin Reaves. After going undrafted in 2021, he quickly earned a spot in the Lakers’ rotation. Last season, he truly broke out and became an integral part of the team’s success on their run to the Western Conference Finals.
This season, Reaves’ stats have increased again as he is averaging 15.1 points, 5.2 assists, 4.3 rebounds and 0.9 steals, all career-best numbers. While the box score looks good for him, he has been one of the least efficient players in the NBA this season.
According to Cleaning The Glass, Reaves has an efficiency difference of -11 thus far this season. That is in the eighth percentile in the NBA and a far cry from what he had produced in his first two seasons in the league. As a rookie, he was in the 88th percentile and last season it was the 92nd percentile with a +7.8 and +8.8, respectively.
Offensively, Reaves’ numbers have slipped to where most of his numbers are right around league average and slightly below. On the other side of the court, an argument could be made that he is the worst defender in the NBA this season.
This season, Reaves is in the first percentile as the Lakers are giving up 10.6 more points per possession when he is on the court compared to off of it. In his first two seasons, the Lakers were at -3.8 and -2.5 as Reaves was an asset on that end of the court.
Given how badly he is performing on defense, along with a drop in efficiency on offense, he has become unplayable for Ham this season. Despite his struggles, he is still fourth on the team with 30.0 minutes per game, just behind Taurean Prince, who is averaging 30.9.
NBA NEWS & TRADE RUMORS: Austin Reaves & Los Angeles Lakers Updates
The constant juggling of his role certainly isn’t easy to deal with, as Reaves hasn’t been able to get into much of a groove. He began the season in the starting lineup, was eventually removed and was not happy about it.
Reaves is back in the starting five now, but it has not changed the team’s fortunes much. Eventually, another change will have to be made as no one on the Lakers is playing well enough to compensate for how much Reaves is dragging them down.
Unless the Lakers can bring in some reinforcements to shake up the rotation, it is hard to envision a path to turning things around. When you are relying on players who are struggling to the level that Reaves is, victories are going to be impossible to come by consistently.
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