Lakers Blueprint to Winning Built on Playing Bigger

With three quarters of the season behind them, the Lakers again find themselves in a battle for a potential playoff bid that would, by current positioning, begin with a spot in one of the win-or-go-home play-in games. It's a position they know well after last season's run to the Conference Finals that started under similarly humble beginnings, and after a regular season that saw dramatic roster changes at the trade deadline propel them into that final push.

This season has offered neither that same type of roster upheaval nor the substantial hole to dig out of in order to march up the standings, but the circumstances of the chase they now find themselves are very similar. This final 20 game stretch of the season will again reveal whether they can qualify for the playoffs at all, or if their season will end prematurely - and disappointingly, considering their preseason status as a team that could content for the championship.

As the team approaches this last portion of the season, then, they will need to put their best foot forward to give themselves the best chance to win every night and position themselves to make the type of run this roster was put together to make. And after 60-plus games worth of games as context, there is enough data to serve as the north star for how they need to play to get to where they want to go.

This is particularly true with regard to lineup construction and the types of personnel groupings that have been most successful to this point in the season. Namely, there is ample evidence that the team has been more often and consistently better when they have played bigger, especially in the frontcourt, but also when accounting for rebounding and defense in their backcourt.

To spell it out more directly, measured by cumulative plus-minus numbers, many of the team's best performing lineups use a combination of these six frontcourt players as the foundation of the lineup: LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Rui Hachimura, Jarred Vanderbilt, Christian Wood, and Jaxson Hayes. And of the ones that are not built around those players, the majority have Max Christie in them, whose rebounding and defense from the guard position have helped round out smaller lineups in ways that don't always show up in the box score via individual production.

To put it even more plainly, there are 24 Lakers lineups that have a cumulative plus-minus of +10 or more this season. Of those groups, only two of them do not fall into the trend outlined above of either a bigger frontcourt or having Christie as one of the players on the court:

The groups that do fit the trend are varied in terms of which players are mixed and matched together, but some common threads do exist. LeBron and Davis have positive lineups with all these players except for Hayes (-5.1 net rating in 18 minutes). Lineups with Davis and Hachimura work very well with either Vanderbilt or Wood. And LeBron has good partnerships with either Wood or Hayes as a big while being flanked by athleticism and motor in Rui or Vanderbilt.

Below are a variety of these different groupings and how they've fared in terms of lineup net rating:

On the whole, while not every combination of these six players is effective if grouped together, the vast majority of them are. And, when zooming out, it makes sense as to why. At this stage of their careers, both LeBron and Davis are great athletes on any given play but are best served by being supported by players who can help cover for them in ways that lessen their physical burden when doing the "dirty work" plays that often equate to doing the "little things". These things will never be completely removed as asks from them, of course, but relying more on the role players for these things can help both players immensely.

This is true when both play together, but it's especially true when they are separated when even more motor and athleticism can be thrown next to them while they anchor units individually. Intrinsically, it makes sense that if you flank LeBron with Rui and one of Wood or Hayes that they can support him on the backboards, in transition, as floor spacers (vertical for Hayes, outside for Wood) and defensively in the paint to help those groups thrive while he helps orchestrate the offense.

Just as for Davis it makes sense that a partnership with Rui and either Vanderbilt (defense, cutting, and transition play) or Wood help support him in areas that allow him to deploy his skill set wherever it's needed most defensively while working through the post offensively. Add these frontcourt combinations with the team's skill guards - particularly now that Dinwiddie is in the fold as another ball handler and shot creator - and Davis can anchor the types of units where he's supported on both sides of the floor.

But just as it's true that there is evidence to show what front court groups are working, similar is bears out when examining the construction of lineups that have not performed as well this season.

The Lakers have 20 lineups that have a cumulative plus-minus of -10 or worse this season. Of those groups, six of them are built around big frontcourts. But, there are some noteworthy distinctions in those groups that make them outliers of sorts. First, in three of those groups, neither LeBron nor Davis are in them. And, second, in one of the groups, all three of the team's "centers" of Davis, Wood, and Hayes are sharing the floor.

This leaves just two lineups with "big" front courts that have a negative plus-minus of 10 or higher. And while it is important to not dismiss those as outlier groups, it should also be noted that when looking at the construction of those groups there's some key overlap:

These groups, while balanced, both have Prince at shooting guard (not his natural position) and only two true ball handlers on the floor (LeBron and one additional skill guard). And while it is never so simple to determine why lineups with good players don't succeed, neither of those groups have the sort of collective size, strength, or athleticism as a group that give them natural advantages physically.

Further, when diving into the specific statistics for those two groups, neither of them shot particularly well from behind the arc (31.3% and 20.0% from three respectively), while the first group was particularly turnover prone (14 total in 26 minutes), and the latter group was especially poor on defense (59 points allowed in just 18 minutes). More goes into whether or not a unit can win their minutes, these groups simply have not found the right alchemy to succeed at the level hoped.

Beyond those lineups, however, it is the ones which aren’t constructed to play bigger that have been the larger issue over the course of the season. For example, groups that feature only two of the aforementioned bigger frontcourt players, while positioning one of the Lakers wings as the nominal small forward have mostly struggled, whether flanking the Lakers starting backcourt of Russell and Reaves or even in groups that feature a better defensive option at one of the other guard spots next to one of the starters:

Even the starting group that began the season (and returned later in the year) with AD, LeBron, Prince, Reaves, and Russell is a -10 in 231 minutes of time together on the court. That number is by no means crippling to the team or reflective of a group that is incapable of winning their shifts, but that is the most used lineup of the season and they are a net-negative overall.

So, as those groups have struggled or done just well enough to be only a slight negative, many others built on bigger frontcourts have not struggled at all. In fact, they have thrived. And while injuries, particularly to Vanderbilt and Wood coming out of the All-Star break have made playing these groups more difficult, the success of these types of units does offer a blueprint for how the team can play, even with a less than fully healthy group.

And if the Lakers are going to make the push towards the postseason they are hoping to, leaning into those bigger lineups and personnel groupings that have been successful while limiting the smaller groups that have not worked as well is a great place to start.