Apr 30, 2025; Los Angeles, California, USA; Los Angeles Lakers forward Rui Hachimura (28) dunks for the basket against the Minnesota Timberwolves during the second half in game five of first round for the 2025 NBA Playoffs at Crypto.com Arena. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images

Lakers Insider Urges Team to Make Major Change to Starting Five

Originally posted on Los Angeles Lakers on SI
By Ryan Stano | Last updated Jul 24, 2025 2:03 PM ET

The Los Angeles Lakers have been trying to improve their roster this offseason after getting bounced in the first round of the playoffs by the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Since that moment, the Lakers have added Deandre Ayton, Marcus Smart and Jake LaRavia. These moves are designed to fill their biggest holes, which were starting center and perimeter defense.

Now that those moves have been made, a Lakers insider believes that there needs to be a change made to the starting lineup in order for Los Angeles to maximize its potential.

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Lakers insider Jovan Buha thinks that the Lakers should swap out Rui Hachimura from the starting lineup and put Marcus Smart as a starter instead.

“I think that the move to me would clearly be to start Marcus Smart over Rui,” he said. “I think the one concern with that is just that Rui has tended to perform better as a starter than a bench player. But at the same time, I don’t think that the starting group as previously constructed was good enough defensively — was not even close to being good enough defensively."

Hachimura was the Lakers' best perimeter defensive player, but he certainly wasn't an All-Defense-caliber player or anything like that. He was a solid guy who did his best on defense.

This seems like an overreaction to signing a guy who won Defensive Player of the Year when his body wasn't completely breaking down. Starting three guards, especially one in Smart, who isn't the shooter the Lakers starve, might be problematic.

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Los Angeles definitely needs better play on defense, but Smart can't be relied upon to be healthy for more than three weeks at a time. Hachimura has also performed much better as a starter than a bench guy.

Starting Smart means that the Lakers are just giving up a spot on offense. He doesn't shoot well off the ball, and they're not going to take it out of Luka Doncic's hands.

Smart would be better off running the second unit and coming in occasionally to help the starters when it comes to stopping the other team's best guard.

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This article first appeared on FanNation All Lakers and was syndicated with permission.

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