Lakers Rumors: LeBron James, Anthony Davis Consulted with Ham on Russell Benching

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Los Angeles Lakers head coach Darvin Ham shifted to a starting lineup of LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Jarred Vanderbilt, Cam Reddish and Taurean Prince in late December, a more defensively versatile unit that allows James to run the point on offense while moving D’Angelo Russell to the bench.

According to ESPN’s Dave McMenamin, the lineup change “was not a unilateral decision—Ham consulted with James and Davis on the concept.”

Since making the change, the Lakes are 3-5. Russell has appeared in five of those games—he missed three contests with a tailbone contusion—averaging 11.4 points and 5.4 assists in those contests.

As a starter, he’s averaged 15.3 points and 6.3 assists per game.

Meanwhile, the lineup of James, Davis, Vanderbilt, Reddish and Prince is outscoring opponents by 11.3 points per 100 possessions across four games and 29 minutes together, per NBA.com. So that change has made sense, albeit in a minuscule sample size.

Given that James often operates as the de facto point guard regardless of who he’s sharing the court with, however, moving the defensively-challenged Russell to the bench to lead the second unit made sense, especially with Gabe Vincent out of commission after having arthroscopic surgery on his left knee.

Injuries have been a major theme of the season. Bursitis of the left heel cost Vanderbilt 20 games; Rui Hachimura has missed a major chunk of the season with various knocks; Reddish has dealt with hamstring issues; Vincent has only played in five games.

All of that while James and Davis have played 34 and 35 games, respectively, and have each played at a high level (both are averaging 25.2 points per game this season).

The team’s struggles have naturally led to speculation that they might be players at the NBA trade deadline in an attempt to salvage what may be one of James’ last seasons in the NBA. An 18-19 start to the season wasn’t the standard expected from this group, though whether the addition of a player like Zach LaVine at the expense of the team’s depth would make sense is hard to gauge.

The third-star experiment failed miserably with Russell Westbrook, though he was always a bad fit stylistically since he’s most comfortable on the ball but doesn’t provide much defense or floor spacing.

LaVine is a far better shooter and would be fine playing off the ball. He wouldn’t provide any sort of upgrade on defense but would give the team another excellent scoring option, especially important on nights when the 39-year-old James or Davis needs a game off.

There are big questions left to answer in Los Angeles, in other words. Expect James and Davis to have input on whatever is decided.