According to a recent report, several people affiliated with the Los Angeles Lakers’ front office sung Gabe Vincent’s praises due to the impact he made in the team’s play-in victory over the New Orleans Pelicans.
“Vincent recorded two 3s and a steal, all while chasing around Pelicans sharpshooter CJ McCollum on the perimeter,” Dave McMenamin and Kevin Pelton wrote. “The Lakers outscored the Pelicans by 13 in the eight minutes Vincent played in the quarter. And, after the game, multiple members of the Lakers front office raved to ESPN about the backup guard’s impact.”
Vincent scored nine points on 3-of-6 shooting from the floor and 2-of-4 from 3-point range against the Pelicans in a win that clinched the Lakers the No. 7 seed in the Western Conference and a first-round matchup against the Denver Nuggets.
He just barely missed out on being the sixth player — along with LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Rui Hachimura, D’Angelo Russell and Austin Reaves — to score at least 10 points for the Lakers versus New Orleans.
Fortunately for Lakers fans, Vincent has plenty of playoff experience under his belt. He was an important cog for a Miami Heat team that went on to reach the NBA Finals a year ago.
Across 22 playoff games (all starts) for the Heat, he averaged 12.7 points, 3.5 assists and 0.9 steals per game while shooting 37.8 percent from deep.
Vincent was sidelined for the overwhelming majority of the 2023-24 regular season, considering he appeared in just 11 of the Lakers’ 82 regular-season contests. But the 27-year-old played in five games for Los Angeles in the month of April before the regular season came to a close.
During that span, Vincent averaged 1.0 point, 1.0 assist and 0.4 steals per game. He also shot just 15.4 percent from the field and 11.1 percent from 3-point range.
He went scoreless in four of the five contests he participated in. The one exception came when he scored five points on five shots from the floor in Los Angeles’ three-point victory over the Memphis Grizzlies on April 12.
Vincent will have his first opportunity to play in a playoff game for the iconic Lakers franchise when the team takes on the Nuggets on Saturday night to kick off a series that marks a rematch of the 2023 Western Conference Finals. Perhaps he will be able to emulate his production in the 2023 NBA Playoffs with Miami during the Lakers’ stint in the playoffs.
