The Los Angeles Lakers’ season opener against the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday night was a mixed bag. On one hand, guard Luka Doncic was spectacular and nearly compiled a 43-point triple-double. He totaled 12 rebounds and nine assists on top of his incredible scoring display.
But on the other hand, only one Laker not named Doncic — Austin Reaves — scored more than 10 points in the game. The Lakers got just 18 points in total from their bench unit as well, and one NBA scout claimed that outside of Doncic, they are “who we thought they were.”
“Luka is awesome,” the scout said, per ESPN, “and the rest of the team is, ‘who we thought they were.’
“[Reaves] was good until he ran out of gas because he had to do so much, but outside of them I couldn’t tell you who their third best player was.”
With forward LeBron James set to be sidelined a bit longer, the Lakers are going to need to find a way to avoid digging themselves an early hole in the Western Conference standings. The scout believes Los Angeles can weather the storm in the meantime because Doncic is capable of putting together more showings like the one he did in the season opener.
“They have a chance because Luka doing that isn’t a one-off performance,” the scout said. “They need some of these other guys to step up. So can they survive it? Yes. They’ll have games where some of these guys hit shots. But you look at their roster, and it’s 1-2-3 — and 2 is out — and then a huge gap.”
One assistant coach echoed the scout’s comments and claimed that Doncic is going to have to play as well as he did on Tuesday on a game-to-game basis for the Lakers to win games without James.
“Luka is going to have to do what he did every night just to give them a chance,” the assistant said.
Guard Marcus Smart, center Deandre Ayton and forward Jake LaRavia were all important offseason additions for the Lakers, but none of them exactly had standout debuts.
Smart lived up to his reputation as a streaky 3-point shooter and misfired on every one of his three attempts from deep. Meanwhile, Ayton simply wasn’t aggressive enough looking for his shot and totaled just seven shot attempts in well over 30 minutes of action. Finally, LaRavia ended up with only five points off the bench.
But it wasn’t simply the new faces who didn’t give Doncic enough help on offense. Two of Los Angeles’ starters against the Warriors — guard Gabe Vincent and forward Rui Hachimura — combined for merely 12 points.
The Lakers’ supporting cast has to be better moving forward regardless of whether James is on the floor or not, and with any luck, their ancillary players will look a whole lot more effective against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Friday.
