Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Should the Lakers Use Rui Hachimura as a Sixth Man? Who Would Start Instead?

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

By signing Deandre Ayton, the Lakers didn't only fill in their hole at center in about the best way possible, they injected 15 or so points a night into a position that didn't offer it last year, following the trade of Anthony Davis. So with four very good offensive players in Luka, LeBron, Austin Reaves and Ayton, is there space for Rui Hachimura to play to his strengths? Will there be enough shots available for him? And meanwhile, if you're not getting offense out of him, what are you getting? He's not a good rebounder, he's not a good defender. So would a move to the bench help the Lakers, and help him? And if it happened, who would fill that spot in the starting lineup? Would it be Jake LaRavia? Jordan Goodwin? Jarred Vanderbilt? Someone who isn't on the team? What does this conversation say about the team's need to find more balance, whether talking more two way players, or at the least, fewer guys that are redundant at the same position.  HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky  SEGMENT: Should Rui Hachimura come off the bench? SEGMENT 2: Who would start for him? SEGMENT 3: Could the Lakers explore a different way to fill their hole on the wing?  Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONNBA at monarchmoney.com/lockedonnba for 50% off your first yearGametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNBA for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.FanDuelRight now, new customers can get ONE HUNDRED FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS when your first FIVE DOLLAR BET WINS! Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of the NBA.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everyone, welcome to Locked on Lakers for Friday. Yeah, Friday. Brian Komenetsky, Andy Kemeniski. Is it time for Rui Hachemura to become the Lakers' sixth man? That's next. You are Locked on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Locked on Podcasts Network, your team every day.

Thanks to everybody for making Locked on Lakers. First listen of every day, Monday through Friday, no matter how, where you get your podcast. This one's always free and never behind a paywall. Locked on Lakers on YouTube is where over 35,000 subscribers to the channel are all hanging out, talking to each other, talking to us, talking about the Summer League debut of Cooper Flagg, Thursday against the Lakers,

matching up against Brony, against Alton Connect, against Cole Swider, who is the single greatest player in Summer League history. They will build statues for this guy across every summer league venue that you can find, just not the NBA ones. It is so plenty to cover in this episode. Want to let people know that today's episode is brought to you by GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, use code locked on NBA for $20 off your first purchase. Obviously, our friend Nick Engstatt, he's spending a lot of time talking about Cooper Flag for Fridays, locked on Mavs.

It is more of a Mab story than a Lakers story. We will talk about the game before the end of the show. But something we've been meaning to get into all week, Andy, is this question of whether or not the signing of DeAndre 8 changes the nature of the Lakers roster to the point that an additional change to the starting lineup is in order. Yeah, and namely it's one of the things that I was thinking about during the DeAndre Aiton press introductory press conference was just how he hopefully changes a lot for the Lakers in a good way, the type of presence that he will provide that certainly they did not have with Jackson Hayes in terms of an offensive force that is not just requires attention from a defense,

but can actually do some things on his own and be a legitimate offensive force in his own right. And when you combine that with LeBron and Luca and Austin Reeves and Rui, you're talking about a lot of offense in one group, which theoretically could be great. But the defensive questions with that fivesome, to put it generously, are many. Like there is not an established plus defender in that five unless LeBron dedicates himself to being that guy on a game in, game out basis over 82. And that would require scaling back some of his own. That's a big ask. It's a big ask.

And to be honest, even if LeBron was totally down with doing that, there are still some matchups that I don't think he's going to be able to do just from a foot speed issue. And they have more guys between Luca, between Luca Rui, LeBron, and depending on certain matchups, DeAndre Ait, and they have more guys who would defend the same types of players anyway, even if everybody is all bought in. You really have nobody out there that profiles to be a plus defender for positions one through three. And then you think about what has been missing with this team in terms of bench scoring. You know, it reared a very ugly head during the playoffs. And it's been something that the Lakers have been absent for the last few years.

And the idea of whether or not somebody from that first five would be better utilized coming off the bench, we know Luca, LeBron, Aiton, those guys aren't going to be coming off the bench. and I know a lot of our listeners, our viewers would say they'd rather see Austin Reeves come off the bench than say, Rui, the only other guy I haven't mentioned, but for a variety of reasons, some of which are basketball, some of which I think are politics for a team that wants to keep Austin long term and he's in a walk year, it ain't going to happen. Like it's just, Brian and I can spend a lot of time debating the pros and cons of this, but ultimately it's a waste of time. because it's not going to happen. So that leaves Rui as the natural, and some would say, only candidate to do this. And when you start, again, thinking about what is missing

from the starting lineup and from the bench unit, it really starts becoming evident to me that they need to find a way to move Rui to the bench and find somebody to bring a defensive presence among that starting five. I think it's a couple things, too, because you have to look at this question, too, based on, you know, if you do decide you need to move somebody out of the, you know, move somebody into the lineup based on skill set and move somebody out of the lineup based on skill set. It, really is, to me, the most natural guy because, like, you know, you can move Reeves out. But to some degree, it's a, it's a, it's a deck chair kind of thing because there is. certainly no scenario in which Austin Reeves doesn't play 36 minutes a night for this team.

Like, you know, or you know, give or take. Like there's, you know, you could say he's better off coming off the bench and you can reorganize some of the way that these minutes are allotted, but he's going to close games and he's going to play 30 something a night. So, I mean, ultimately, you're still redefining some of these roles, you know, and how you do? Like, you know, And so Rui, his skill set lends itself, especially since he's going to be playing at some point, you know, in any way, if it comes off the bench, some combination of Luca LeBron and Reeves are still going to be out there to help generate shots for him. Like his skill set just naturally works coming off the bench because it fills the need we were talking about earlier this week. like why would you sign Bradley Beal?

Because you need bench scoring. Okay. So would it make more sense to move Jared Vanderbilt into the starting lineup to play somewhat small with, you know, a good win or someone like that? But basically take Rui's skill set, move him to a place where it's badly needed, and meanwhile bolster the starting lineup. I still think Rue would have finished a lot of games. Yeah.

You could create a more, a little more defensive integrity. Look, they need more defensive integrity. We can talk about during the show who at least do they have a potential answer on the roster to provide that? Or do they need to find that player in some kind of trade? Hell, it could end up a trade involving Rui because they might ultimately need to use Rui in order to bring in that guy. but they need to find more balance in that starting five and among however many players they've got in their rotation coming off the bench. I also just feel like you're going to get more utility out of Rui coming off the bench because

if he is playing an inordinate amount of minutes with those starters with Luca, with LeBron, with Aiton, with Austin. He's not going to get enough shots to make his presence felt anyway. And you're not going to get the best, you're not going to get the best version of Rui. You're not going to get the most utility out of them. Like, for example, last season post-all-Star breaks. So, like, this is, Anthony Davis is gone. Jackson Hayes is the starting five.

Not exactly an offensive machine, Jackson Hayes. like he is not capable of creating offense on his own. All of it has to be created for him. The gap between Austin Reeves averaging 14.7 field goal attempts and Rui Hachamora at 9.2, that's five and a half field goal attempts per game. And that's before you're adding D'Andre Aiton into that mix. Like Rui was only getting two more shots per game than DFS. And DFS is essentially a catch and shoot.

player. He'll put the ball on the floor every now and then, but mostly he is just out there waiting for the ball to come and then he lets fly. And he still was taking only two fewer shots than Rui, who has a much wider offensive skill set, much more ways that he can score, much more things that he can do on his own. Once you put DeAndre Aiton in that mix, at that point, you're going to start getting diminishing returns from Rui as a starter, and then you're going to start wanting to see more of like the quote unquote little things from Rui. And while it is a, you know, it's a incumbent upon him to try to do as many of those things as possible, Rui's not a little things player.

Like that. Like, if you're, if you're putting Rui in a position where you're not asking him to really maximize his greatest strength in order to accentuate the things he doesn't do as well, that doesn't really make sense, especially when he could fill him. more pressing need coming off the bench. So let's talk about what that could look like because, you know, I think it's something that makes sense. I think you could even sell it to Rui because like, yes, there is a, you know, you're going

to get your minutes either way. Your minutes will look a lot like what they did last year. But your numbers going into a contract year are actually going to be better as a sixth man than they would quite possible because you're going to get the shots. You're not going to get the shots as a sixth man. So we'll talk about maybe who might fill that starting role and what it would look like in practice. We'll do that next. Locked on Lakers is brought to you by game time.

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Terms apply. Again, create an account, redeem the code L-O-C-E-D-O-N-N-BA for 20 bucks off. Download the GameTime app, last-minute ticket's lowest price guarantee. So, you know, the question, the hard question or a hard question with this at least is if you take him out of the starting lineup, take Rui Hachamara out, and there's certainly a compelling argument that it makes sense from the Lakers strategically. Who do you put in? Because what are you giving up with Rui in the starting line? There's obviously some size, some athleticism, although he doesn't play big necessarily.

But he's certainly an athletic player. He plays bigger in mismatches. Like if you're trying to, if you start switching, in theory, particularly when he's out there with other big players, Rui can become a guy that punishes those mismatches. Sure. What I meant by that was more like you don't see him just like abusing people on the glass or the, you know, things like they're not like a rebound. No, there's a one of the little.

things Rui does not really do. Right. Not even so little. But like you're obviously, the biggest, most obvious thing you're losing is a 40% three point shooter, like a legitimate floor spacer around Reeves, around Luca, around LeBron. And as we know, that is an incredibly important thing. You know, Luca, I mean, you know, to have that floor spacing, you want a vertical threat and you want floor spacing when you, when you, when you, when you,

you have an offense that's orchestrated by Luca Donchich. And so, you know, that's really what you're giving up. So can the Lakers put shooting back into that spot in a way that solves the defensive question or at least solves it enough or maybe improves it just by slotting guys differently? You know, can that be replaced? Or do you sacrifice a little bit of the shooting in order to just find? a better defensive combination. I would start with looking to sacrifice some of the offense

for the best possible defensive substitute for Rui. My basic thought is if an offense with Luca Donchich, LeBron James, Austin Reeves, and D'Andre Aiton, for whatever reason, isn't really potent, I think you've got much bigger problems than who the fifth guy is. At that point, something just is not working, whether in terms of scheme, how these guys play off, each other, it looks better on paper than it is actualized.

Well, I mean, unless the thing is just you, for whatever reason, they're not able to space the floor enough. But you know, between. You've got three above average, you got three above average three point shooters in LeBron, Luca, and Austin, two of those guys, you're never going to leave unguarded under any circumstances in Luca and LeBron. Like, and DeAndre Aiton is a legitimate offensive. force. Again, I just kind of feel like if you can't get by without a fifth guy out there who

shoots with that group, I feel like the offense is better on paper than it is in reality. I agree with you. So my thought would be looking for somebody who really does a lot of the opposite of the other guys out there. My first thought is Jordan Goodwin because he plays bigger than he is. like he in a lot of ways plays forward-sized, even though he's in a guard's body. He's listed at six, depending on where you look, he's listed at either six-four or six-five. Right. He's not teeny tiny, but he's not, but I think he plays bigger than his size. He brings a lot of physicality.

He is able to, I think, guard both up and down, which I think is really useful. He's a very disruptive defender, and I think that's going to get the opportunities to run for Luca or for LeBron or for Austin that'll open up a lot of those lob opportunities for Aiton or other guys. I think that that can happen from Goodwin's just overall defensive intensity and approach. He is outstanding on the glass for his position. He is really, really good. He is a reasonably good ball handler. Like if you give in the ball, if nothing else, he can get it back to somebody else without getting into trouble. He, I know was, up and down as a shooter with the Lakers, but he shot 38% in the aggregate.

If say he finished at around 34% from behind the arc with everything else you have out there offensively and everything you need from Goodwin, I think that's good enough. Like he's going to be unguarded a lot. They will give him those shots, but it reminds me a bit of in 2009 the Lakers run to the championship. every single round, Trevor Areza was the designated, we are going to leave you wide open and dare you to make these shots. And Trevor ended up making it work really well for himself and the Lakers. And he was not at the time anywhere more an established shooter than Jordan Goodwin.

I do think it's good that you, the number you threw out for Goodwin wasn't like, you know, and if he can do 37, 38, it's like, no, the reason Jordan Goodwin is available for the Lakers was because he's always struggled to be, you know, a consistent shooter from outside, low 30s over the course of his career. What he did when he got here was the outlier. And then as the season went on, he kind of reverted back to the level. And so, yeah, because there's really, to me, the comment, Somebody left the comment, I think is really good.

It's like, you know, he's the idea of what you'd want to start. The problem, I think the bigger question becomes, if you do that, are you sort of too undersized? I mean, the Luca's size really changes the dynamic of what this stuff looks like. because let's call Goodwin's 64, 65, Reeves is 65, Lucas 6-6-6-6-6, correct? 6-7 or 6-8. Yeah. And then obviously LeBron and then, you know,

Aiton at 7 feet. Like, that's, you'd love to have like one more guy who's 6-8 instead of 6-5 or, you know, whatever. But like, that's not a small group. That's not a little itty-ditty lineup. So I think you could do that. He can, you know, he can guard three. You can hide Luca where you want.

You're then, you know, you can put Reeves into a situation where he's able to, instead of, you know, throwing him at the other team's best defensive player on the wing, you can hide them on their second or third. You know, you just, the option, the concept with Goodwin certainly makes a lot of sense. And I like, too, by taking Rui off the starting, out of the starting lineup, you are also slotting LeBron into a more natural spot. Because between Rui and LeBron, one of those guys often is going to have to guard threes. And it's not a great setup for either of them.

Rui is just not kind of intuitive enough or quick enough on that side of the ball. And LeBron is 58 years old. So I like Goodwin. I think I see it in the comments section. Laravia is potentially an option. I'm open to the idea. I need to see more before. I need to see it more with Laravia.

I'm open to the concept, but I need to see it. But then from there, I would love the idea of Vando, but Vando is a better, more versatile defender than Goodwin, but Goodwin's offense has more utility than Vando's. And Vando's just, if he can find the thing, like the one thing that he does offensively, that he can do consistently. And maybe it's just screening and helping move the ball. And if they can become creative with ways to do it, fine. But he has issues inside and outside scoring.

Gabe Vincent's too small. I mean, he's just, he's, we saw this last year when JJ often made Gabe part of his closing lineup as like the defensive specialist. And teams kept targeting him because he's too. too small. Like Gabe works hard. I appreciate the hustle. He's too small. So to me, if it's not Goodwin or an improved Vando or I guess theoretically, La Ravia, then I guess we get to the question of do the Lakers need to make a trade to make the thing happen? What it's for what it's worth, La Ravia, according to cleaning the glass last year with Sacramento played 47% of his minutes at the three and 53% at the four.

That's another question I have. With Memphis, though, he played 82% of his minutes at small forward and 16% at power forward the year before that. It was 23% of the two. It's 53 at the 3 and 23 at the 4. So La Ravia has played plenty of small forward. So in theory, you could slot him there, LeBron at the 4. and obviously eight and the five.

It's an interesting question. We'll wrap it up next and we'll talk a little bit about what we saw on the floor on Thursday. We'll do all that next. A lot of this question to me, Andy just gets to, like I know the Lakers, let's say they wave Shake Milton between now and the 20th, which I think they will.

I think they'll wait until the very end because you might need that contract to include somewhere so that somebody else can wave him when they want to. but if he is still a Laker on the 20th, I do think the Lakers will wave him to open up that space, whether they use it now or use it later. To me, it really does. This conversation emphasizes that this team needs more tools. We did a, I did Spectrum Sportsnet,

the Lakers TV affiliate today, you know, their studio show, did that on Thursday night. And we did a little thing where they showed the depth chart. And I'm looking at it and I'm like, you know what? I like this starting lineup. And that's a pretty good starting lineup the Lakers put together. I'm just choosing not to lead below the starters really hit any position.

Because if you start doing that, it gets dicey quickly. I don't think they can afford to leave roster spots open just because either you want to save a little money or more likely you're just keeping it open for somebody to become available later in the year. Yeah, I mean, for the most, for the most part, buyout guys are not terribly impactful. You know, the, the Lakers during the 2020 title run got one in Marquith Morris, who actually did end up helping them during that run to the championship. But that is far more exception than rule in terms of guys that actually really help a team. make a deep run, much less when a championship off the buyout market.

For the most part, these guys don't, they don't make the impact that you feel like they will based off either stature or resume or name. There is often a reason that they end up getting bought out that late in the season. You know, never say never. It can be possible. Again, it happened for the Lakers in 2020. Like, neither one of us thought Markief Morris, you know, we didn't. have a problem with him as a buyout guy, but neither one of us thought he was necessarily going to

be that impactful. And we were both incorrect. Well, we were incorrect in the end. We were not incorrect at the beginning. In the beginning, Morris really didn't have much of an impact. But in the end, he did. He did. But like you look around the league. I do think we are still in an era where teams are recalibrating their rosters to the new CBA. So in defense of the let's wait plan, keep the roster spot open, let's wait. Because unless you think the player you're bringing in is going to make a contribution, if it's just sort of a placeholder,

I, like, that's fine. You know, I don't know if you need to guarantee somebody money just so you can say you're getting someone. Like, you know, I think ideally if you could send two players out for one coming back, you release Shake Milton and now you have 13, and 14 and 15 open so you can sign somebody for 14 or acquire. So like that makes more sense to me.

Like I, I, I, but like, I'm watching Darius Basley, for example. And I'm not saying he needs to be on the team necessarily. But if I had a 15th roster spot and I could choose between shake

Milton and Darius Basley, I'm taking Basley. You know, and if you, look around the league right now. I'm seeing a lot of people in the comment section talking about, you know, the Wizards, for example. They just brought back, I believe, on Thursday, they've, the guys have brought back Bagley,

correct? Yeah. And I think they're up to 18 players on their roster. That's going to have to change. And I realize a couple of them aren't very good. But, you know, for the most part, actually, the Wizards are assembling a pretty decent amount of talent. Like, does that mean Chris Middleton's?

going to get bought out. It's hard to know exactly what's coming. So I don't think they're done, but I also think they can't just wait on a player. There's somebody out there. You've got to bring them in because they need balance. You know, like in a mere coffee or something like that could be really helpful of this team.

It's like I said earlier, if that person, because getting back to the original start of this conversation, The starting lineup and the bench both need rebalancing in terms of skill sets, which led us to this conversation about Rui. And if there's nobody on the roster who could take that starting spot for Rui and provide a defensive balance with enough offensive utility of some kind to make it work, then you start getting in the question of you need to acquire that guy.

because I just feel like the projected starting five just has too many defensive holes. And it's going to become incumbent on them to score like 125 to 130 a game, I think just to give themselves any type of cushion at all over 82. And then forget what, forget some of the problems you're going to face in the playoffs. Right. It just there's too much, forget the idea that you don't even have like a, a designation, plus defender in that starting five, you have too much redundancy between some of the neutral defenders in terms of what you would ask them to do. Like from a defensive lineup, from a defensive

standpoint, that lineup simply doesn't make sense. And they have to find a way whether through somebody that is on the roster or a trade. And hell, the trade may involve Ruy. But they have to do something because as currently constructed, it doesn't make sense. And the tricky thing with that, Rui, too, is like, and I will say this is an instance where the, you know, you can kind of see and will, I think over time find out, like, are they kind of holding back for this space in 26, space in 27 thing? Because the thing the Lakers have available to them are expiring contracts. But to trade expiring contracts generally got to take somebody's money back because they want off of a contract.

You're willing to take it. They get a bunch of expiring money and everybody wins. If the Lakers, they're setting themselves up for another one of these situations where Rui Hachamara is a pretty good year, whatever, but you end up not doing anything with him because you aren't going to assign him to an extension. Like, are you bringing him back? Are you resigning? I'm like, do you feel like it's pretty obvious? They're ready to pay Austin Reeves $30 to $35 million a year.

Like, everybody sees that. Are they willing to do that with Rui? And if the answer is no, holding on to him is a risk. It's another potential example of not utilizing the players that you have. The flip side of that, of course, Andy, is if you think LeBron is leaving after this season, suddenly holding on to Rui makes a lot more sense because no longer are you in a space where he and LeBron are kind of tripping over each other positionally. So there's just a lot to think about.

And when you're never kind of building a team with real structure for the future, Trevor Lane made a great point out of this. Like the other problem with this space thing is it makes your eye. identity, space. You don't build anything. You don't build a culture. You don't build a team that has cohesion and grows from year to year. It's a different group every year because everybody's on a one year or a two year. And your identity is space. So that's the other part about this that is, I think, interesting because there is a long-term consideration here to think about. Well, I'll summarize it this way because there's been a lot of reports about the Lakers.

and the Heat talking about a trade where the centerpieces of it would be Rui for Andrew Wiggins. And it'd be like Rui, whatever else is necessary to fill out the salary match plus maybe Dalton plus a first. To me, the objection there should not be because Andrew Wiggins has one more year left on his deal. The objection should be, we're not giving you Rui, you know, our best of all of our expiring contracts as a player and Dalton and a first for Andrew Wiggins. Like I think that's too much for Andrew Wiggins. But the contract, which by the way, I believe expires after 2027 anyway, the contract shouldn't be the problem.

Right. It's if you think. If you think, if you think, if you think, I mean, look, if you were going to design the kind of player that you would want,

like swap out, Rui Hachamura and put in Andrew Wiggins in terms of lineup balance, roster balance, defensive presence, all that kind of stuff. I mean, it makes a ton of sense. And I'm correct. His contract expires after 2027. He has a player option for 2627,

but it expires after the summer. Right. In the mythical summer of 2027, if that's really the plan and I'm not 100% sold, it is. but even if it is, Wiggins should not get in the way of that. I would happily trade Rui and Vincent, or I might even consider Rui and Connect,

with whatever salary balancing that you need in there. I wouldn't do Connect and the first, because it's too much to give up in one deal. But I mean, I am skeptical enough of Connect. that I'd be willing to do it for a guy like Wiggins, who just fits a really important need, still defense. Like if you liked what Dore and Finney Smith brought to this team,

Andrew Wiggins does that only better. I would, he's a significant, I think at this point in his career, significantly more versatile defender and is a better offensive player. And so I would do that in a heartbeat. But like that's the, He is, I think, the archetype of a true wing defender that would add tremendous balance to this roster. He's Goodwin three inches taller, basically.

Again, but like I said, I'm not even saying this to be a proponent for trading for Andrew Wiggins. My point was just the contract, because it's only two more years anyway, the contract should not be the impediment. Right, I agree with you. The ask. I agree with you. And so if the ask gets lower, I would hope that the Lakers would find a way to make a move like that because that makes them much better. Sure. A move like that would make them so much better.

Anyway, Lock on Lakers on YouTube, Andy, is we're going to hang out with over 35,000 subscribers. Many of these people also subscribe on Spotify or Apple podcast, things like that, get the show the audio version that way. we will be back Monday, right, for a Monday show. Yeah, Flakers got a couple summer league games in between, so we'll see what's going on there. I'll talk a little Bronny, talk a little connect, hopefully connect enhancing his trade value. So plenty to look forward to over the weekend.

We'll see everyone on Monday.