Lakers Training Camp BATTLE Between Marcus Smart & Austin Reaves! | NEW Starting Lineup Competition?

Lakers Training Camp BATTLE Between Marcus Smart & Austin Reaves! | NEW Starting Lineup Competition?

You know, following the Lakers signing Marcus Smart, there’s been a lot of talk about where he will or where he should fall within their rotation. Will it be off the bench in that six-man kind of role for their team? Or will it or should it be in their starting lineup? And if it does, who should he or who would he be replacing? Could it be Austin Reeves? And could they potentially have a training camp battle on their hands? smart kind of vying for that starting spot to be their backward defender and kind of wing defender or potentially could it be Rui Hachimura maybe though the much more common one I’ve seen is between Austin Reeves and Marcus Smart personally I think there is an argument for Marcus Smart and Rui Hatchima here which we might eventually talk about in a future video but if you’re simply talking about the shooting guard spot and Smart overtaking that from Austin Reeves Reeves coming off the bench and then Smart entering the starting lineup is there an argument to be made for that and is there a potential training camp battle to be had with that? Again, maybe we’ll talk about that and break it down from an offensive standpoint, a defensive standpoint, and simply a team chemistry and team continuity standpoint, too. So, to begin, I guess we’ll start with a basic overview of it, what each player brings to the table and what they showed last season. And for Austin and what you’d be replacing if you would replace him in a starting lineup, you’d be replacing a guy that averaged roughly 20 points per game, four and a half rebounds per game, six assists per game, 1.1 steals per game, shooting an efficient 46% for the field, and nearly 38% from three, while attempting roughly seven three-point shot attempts per game. So, you would be replacing a good efficient three-point shooter for their team. a guy that can play both on the ball and off the ball. A guy that was a third and kind of tertiary playmaker and scoring option for their team both next to LeBron and Anthony Davis and then LeBron and Luca Donuch thereafter. A guy that played well with Luca Donuch. You know, I think that’s a common misconception that they weren’t a good fit and didn’t play well together. But that’s simply not true. If we look at the lineup data and twoman lineup data combinations between the Lakers, Luca and Austin actually were one of the best, too. And no, I’m not joking about that. In fact, they were actually in the top three of any Lakers two-man lineup combination that played over 600 minutes. Luca and Austin Reeves had one of the highest net ratings. Austin Luke had a net rating of 6.5. Also an offensive rating of 119.7, absolutely elite. Even a decent defensive rating of 113.2, too, showing that they definitely can share the court together, that they can play well together, that they’re not a defensive liability on the court together, and it definitely can work between them, which should only get better over time as they barely played together last season. Only 26 sole games and then a short playoff run. So now building more team continuity, more team chemistry between them, not to mention making some better lineup combinations around them, I think that’s definitely a good thing for the long haul with them. and they even showed some pretty good potential and good chemistry to start out with. So, no, it’s definitely not true that they can play together or that they weren’t a good fit last season. However, if you are trying to point out something with that and a negative to point to with them, I guess you obviously could and would point to their defense. I know it’s going to be mentioned, so we’ll talk about it. Obviously, neither Luconic or Austin Reeves being great defenders, both being more backward players rather than wing players. So, kind of hard to hide them on defense if neither one’s taking on a tough matchup, then you definitely need to have two good defenders beside them. And if you also count in LeBron, who’s obviously going to play plenty with them as well, then you need to have two particularly good defenders beside both of them. And not to mention behind them, too. DeAndre maybe and hopefully does have that part covered behind them, but playing next to them, they don’t really have that currently with Rui Hatchimal. So that’s kind of the argument to maybe replace Austin Reeves with a guy like Marcus Smart factoring in the defense and not making at least one of Rui Achimra, LeBron James, Austin Reeves or Luca Donic take on a tough defensive matchup. I guess you can point to that. After all, we are talking about a former defensive player of the year here. And yes, he is a few years removed from that title, but is still a very effective defender nonetheless. Last season per bballindex.com, Marcus Smart posting grades of a B+ for ball screen navigation, an Agrade for offball chaser defense, also an Agrade for passing lane defense, did post a grade of a C for perimeter isolation defense, though in 2024 had an A+ in 2023 having a B+. then posting an A minus for pickpocket rating which is shown by an a him averaging over two seals per 36 minutes having a career average of two of them per 36 minutes even averaging 2.1 per regular average in 2023 24 still being very effective on defense is a versatile defender you know is only 6’3 but actually does pretty well defending wings maybe not the bigger wing players but definitely for shooting guards small forwards smaller wings he definitely can’t take on that match up and do a pretty well at that too or simply for blowing up a play and navigating screens and staying in front of matchups. He’s very good at doing that. And yes, even last season he showed it too. I mean, here he is absolutely blowing up a Lakers possession back prior to the trade deadline. Here he is match up with Rui Himura switching off of him and going on to Austin Reeves, staying in front of him and even while navigating an Anthony Davis screen while doing it, getting back to his match up on Austin, pickpocketing him and even saving the ball from going out of bounds and doing it while throwing it off of Austin Real simply a clip and kind of a small sample of what Marcus Smart can do on defense. Something they don’t really have on their team right now. Yes, they I mean kind of do with Gabe Vincent is a decent point of attack defender. is a pretty good screen navigator. But the combination of doing both that pickpocketing guys and making plays on defense, bodying up and getting more physical to defend smaller wings and simply wing players in general, that’s what Marcus Smart can offer and something they really didn’t have prior to signing him. So factoring that in here, you can make an argument defensively to replace Austin or Himra for that fact with Marcus Smart. I mean, talking about a battle between them, there’s really no contest. Marcus Smart will and would beat him out every single time. Whether you’re talking about defending ones, twos, even threes for that fact. However, if you then factor in offense and then team continuity, which we will get to in a minute here, then it definitely becomes a much better argument. I mean, if you’re going to put a guy around Luca Donuch and Lebron, not to mention maybe Austin Reeves than for that fourth player. I mean, if you’re gonna put a guard or wing player around Luca Donuch and LeBron and even Austin, if you’re not replacing him here, maybe looking to replace Hatimo with Smart, then that player definitely has to be a good three-point shooter. And well, that’s simply not something we can say for Marcus. Smart isn’t a terrible three-point shooter, per se, but definitely not a very good one. Up until this point, has been a 32.4% career three-point shooter. Even if you want to narrow that down to simply the past five years now, dating back to the 2019 2020 NBA season, only has been a 33.6% career three-point shooter or only in that 5-year time frame. Or then for a corner three-point shooting is a bit better here, but still around league average at best, slightly below it, even only a 35.3% corner three-point shooter. You know, I guess he does get paired during the postseason. That’s when Marcus Smart turns it on more and does become a bit more clutch. At that point is a 33.4% career playoff three-point shooter. And even if you want to talk about corner three-point shooting, at that point in the playoffs is actually very good. Shooting over 40% on corner threes during the postseason. So getting to that point, maybe you can rely on him a bit more, knocking down the corner and wing shots and if he’s completely wide open. But throughout a long 82 game regular season, you definitely ideally would like to have a more reliable three-point shooting option next to LeBron James, Luca Donuch, and maybe Austin Reeves. And well, if you are replacing Austin, then you’re kind of left with Marcus Smart, Rui Achimra, and DeAndre Aton pretty much throwing out Aiden at that point isn’t a three-point shooter and therefore not a three-point shooting threat. Therefore putting a ton of pressure on Rui Aimra, who although was a very efficient three-point shooter for their team last season, wasn’t a very high volume three-point shooter. In his roughly 32 minutes per game, only attempted about four of them per game. That’s actually pretty low volume shooting. Again, love the efficiency and never will complain about that with Hachimura shooting 41% from three last season. But if you take out Austin and his over seven three-point shot attempts per game, then you’re probably asking Ruachimro to attempt roughly five to six of them per game. At that point, does he remain that efficient with the added pressure on him and probably a better screen navigator on him? A guy that’s watching him a bit more closely on offense. The player that probably would guard Austin would then guard Ru at Chimra. At that point, it would become more difficult for him and he would have more focus drawn to him. So, you definitely do have to factor that in here, too. Whether you’re talking about three-point shooting or simply off gravity, Austin obviously is much better at it and does attract a lot more attention compared to Marcus Smart, which directly affects guys like Luca Donuch, LeBron James, even Ruachimro from an efficiency standpoint and probably even DeAndre Aton too. So factoring in the offense and especially off ball play, then even more importantly factoring in the team continuity. You know, I mentioned the lineup combination and the potential for that to improve with Luca Donuch and Austin Reeves, but simply talking about the three-man game and fourman game between himself, Luca Donuch, and Rui Hachimura, that’s something that you maybe don’t want to mess with quite yet, especially the three-man game between himself, Luca, and Lebron. That’s something that could be built on and team continuity could actually benefit if you then replace Austin with Marcus Smart. That’s definitely a big change and something they would have to adapt to. Obviously, that’ll take time. That’s a massive skill set change. The offensive skill set from Austin Demarcus Smart, the defensive one from himself, Demarcus Smart, obviously a pretty big change, and they’re already going to have to accommodate that with DeAndre Aton. You know, maybe not as big of a change due to a center that doesn’t do as much on the court, but it’s already a pretty big change. And then adding another one with him, again, that being Marcus Smart, would take some time to get used to. So, if you ask me, I really don’t see it happening. Yes, you definitely can make an argument for it. And if Austin wouldn’t play well offensively, or maybe if you get hurt, then I definitely could see Marcus Smart stepping in and becoming their starting shooting guard either temporarily or maybe permanently. But I don’t see it happening from game one. Definitely not even from the early season in general. I think they’ll keep the three-man combination of Luca Donuch, Austin Reeves, and LeBron James. But with all of that being said, what do you guys think? How do you feel about a potential battle between Marcus Smart and Austin Reeves? Either talking about the starting lineup or simply rotation in general, playing time in general. How do you think it should or will pan out and what JJ Reic will ultimately go with between them? Let me know your thoughts in the comments down below. But I think that’ll pretty much do it for this one. And if you enjoyed the video, then I would greatly appreciate it if you dropped a like, subscribe to the channel if you have not already, and hit that notification bell to never miss out when I upload a video. But as always, thank you for watching and have a great day or night.

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