The Los Angeles Lakers started 2023 in great danger of falling out of the playoff race. Many felt at the time that Russell Westbrook was that proverbial anchor that was keeping them under .500 and preventing them from taking off.
Then came a February trade that sent Westbrook, Juan Toscano-Anderson, Damian Jones, a 2027 first-round draft pick and a 2024 second-round pick for D’Angelo Russell, Jarred Vanderbilt and Malik Beasley. It came on the heels of a January trade for reserve forward Rui Hachimura, and the two deals resulted in a reborn Lakers squad.
The team went all the way to the Western Conference finals and retained almost all of its key free agents in July, leading to big expectations for this season. But now that the calendar has turned over to 2024, Los Angeles finds itself 17-17 and in 10th place in the Western Conference after losing eight of its last 11 games.
The Lakers still have an opportunity to go after something special in the months to come. These new year’s resolutions will help them generate some real momentum throughout the rest of the regular season.
Jalen Hood-Schifino, Maxwell Lewis, Colin Castleton, D'Moi Hodge, Alex Fudge
All five Lakers rookies need to develop at their own pace.
They have barely played this season, and one cannot expect any of them to get significant playing time the rest of the way, barring a major rash of injuries. Some time in the G League would do them good; it would help them hone skills and build confidence.
Max Christie
Shoot the 3-pointer more consistently
Outside shooting is arguably the Lakers’ biggest weakness right now. Last season, as a rookie, Christie shot an impressive 41.9% from 3-point range, but so far this season, he’s at 30.8% from that distance.
The most encouraging thing for him is his effort and energy. The 6-foot-5 wing plays hard defensively and on the boards, and it could be an indicator of his work ethic off the court and his overall desire for his craft.
Jaxson Hayes
Rebound and defend with more effort and vigor
Right now, the Lakers have a lack of productive big men outside of Anthony Davis. Hayes is very athletic and bouncy, and he has the potential to be a great rim protector. But so far this season, he’s averaging 0.3 blocks and 1.9 rebounds in 10.5 minutes a game.
Christian Wood
Wood must return to the type of offensive production he showed the past three seasons
Wood came to the Lakers this past summer with the reputation as an offensive-minded big man who could get buckets in bunches. But in 29 games, he’s averaging 6.8 points per contest. Until his last three games, he was struggling mightily with his 3-point shot.
His rebounding, however, has been very solid, and the team merely needs him to not hurt it on the defensive end. It would also help if head coach Darvin Ham ran more plays and actions for Wood, in particular to get him more post-up opportunities.
Jarred Vanderbilt
Be more useful offensively and play with more consistent energy and aggression overall
Los Angeles doesn’t need more than two or three made baskets per game from Vanderbilt. But he needs to not be a liability on offense. He needs to cut to the basket, catch and finish more consistently and run the floor in transition more often. It appears he has made more of an effort to do those things in the last few games.
While he is an effective and versatile defender and a solid rebounder, every so often he will have a game where he almost seems invisible because he isn’t playing with his usual energy and intensity.
Gabe Vincent
Get and stay healthy
This one is simple, but not necessarily easy. Vincent, whom the Lakers signed to a three-year, $33 million contract in July, has played in five games. He has shown the potential to be a tenacious defender, hustle player and possibly even a glue guy, but he has suffered from persistent knee swelling that led him to undergo surgery.
He is expected to be re-evaluated sometime near the end of February. If he returns and remains healthy from that point on, he should be a significant contributor off the bench.
Cam Reddish
Become a reliable 3-point shooter
Reddish, a former lottery pick in 2019, unexpectedly moved into the Lakers’ starting lineup in early November. For about a month afterward, they played much better, and Reddish’s ability to pressure the ball played a role.
But he’s shooting just 29.7% from downtown this season. He doesn’t need to become a volume 3-point shooter, but he does need to shoot above the league average on a consistent basis from that distance.
Rui Hachimura
Be more consistent
Hachimura is a very skilled scorer and is deceptively athletic. But while he is always prone to have a very strong game off the bench, he is just as prone to take an underwhelming number of shots and struggle to hit them.
The Lakers are 17th in points per game and just 23rd in offensive rating. For them to climb the rankings in both categories, Hachimura needs to, at the very least, minimize the number of games in which he either shoots poorly or fails to be aggressive.
Taurean Prince
Keep up the good work from beyond the arc
After a poor November, Prince, who shot 37.2% from 3-point range in his previous seven seasons, made 46.4% of his shots from downtown in December. He’s at 40.1% from that territory on the season.
If he keeps that up, he can help the Lakers start to string together wins with regularity.
D'Angelo Russell
Return to form and don’t get distracted by peripheral opponents
Russell set career highs in overall shooting percentage and 3-point accuracy last season. He started this season on that same trajectory, but he was at just 37.5% from the field and 27.5% from downtown in the first eight games of December. Afterward, he showed signs of breaking out of that slump, but he’s now coming off the bench and playing fewer minutes than he was previously, which could make it more challenging for him to get into a rhythm.
He seems to be the likeliest player to get traded if the Lakers decide to make a significant trade. Russell needs to remain focused and not let trade rumors affect him or his play.
Austin Reaves
Improve defensively
It seems the rest of the league has figured out that Reaves could be taken advantage of defensively, especially when he’s forced to guard a bigger opponent. Los Angeles doesn’t need him to become a defensive stopper, but it does need him to hold his own.
Other than that, Reaves has picked up where he left off during his revelatory 2022-23 campaign. He’s averaging 15.1 points and 4.9 assists a game this season, and in the month of December, he was at 17.3 points per contest while shooting 49.7% from the field and 39.7% from 3-point land.
Anthony Davis
Stay dominant, stay healthy
Davis feasted in December by putting up 28.5 points, 12.3 rebounds and 2.5 blocks a game while shooting 54.9% from the field. He even rediscovered his dormant outside shot by hitting 42.9% from deep on 21 attempts in December.
The big man hasn’t been 100% for parts of this season, but he has played through pain and appeared in 32 of the team’s 34 games. He needs to avoid anything more than very minor injuries, and some of that will, unfortunately, depend on luck. But he has clearly put in the work over the last couple of years to be able to avoid and withstand injuries better than he did in the past.
LeBron James
Stay healthy, stay productive and stay youthful
What else can be said about James that hasn’t been said yet? He’s putting up his usual numbers in his 21st season, but he’s also shooting 53.5% overall and 40.9% from downtown, and both those figures are well above his career averages.
James appears to have more energy and has apparently done a better job of avoiding fatigue down the stretch of games. But for him to continue to be energetic and relatively healthy, the Lakers need to get his minutes down. Even though they vowed to trim his minutes and workload when the season began, he’s averaging 34.2 minutes a game. While that is down from 35.5 minutes per game last season, it is still too high for the 39-year-old at this point of his career.
