One of the biggest problems for the Lakers this season was that they didn’t have a 3rd playmaker after Lebron and Dlo. Earlier in the season, Ham would often rest Lebron and Dlo at the same time and the Reaves led bench lineups struggled. It’s also why Lakers have a 0-6 record without Dlo this season. There wasn’t any other guard that could fill his playmaking role.
Dinwiddie is coming off a down year as the starting PG for the Nets, yet still recorded 0.69 on the LEBRON impact metric. In comparison Dlo has a 0.21 LEBRON and Reaves -0.25. That would put Dinwiddie as the 3rd most impactful player on this team after AD and Lebron. He’s also fairly better defensively than both guards per D-LEBRON. Lakers essentially have a starting caliber PG coming off the bench.
Dlo and Dinwiddie being interchangeable means that Lakers could survive games where Dlo struggles. They likely would’ve survived Dlo’s slump in December (10 pts 41% FG) if they had Dinwiddie at the time. Most importantly in the playoffs, it allows Ham to bench Dlo and Reaves depending on the matchup. Against the Nuggets/Wolves, Ham can start Dinwiddie-Reddish-Rui-Lebron-AD and have a somewhat switchable starting 5. A bench of Dlo-Reaves-Prince-Wood-Hayes would be amazing.
**TLDR:** Dinwiddie is a starting caliber PG coming off the bench. He’s statistically an upgrade over Lakers guards on both ends. It allows Ham to bench Dlo and Reaves in the playoffs depending on the matchup. A Dinwiddie-Reddish-Rui-Lebron-AD starting lineup could compete with some of the tougher matchups in the playoffs like the Nuggets and Wolves. Dlo and Reaves would come off the bench and be huge positives.
[https://www.bball-index.com/lebron-application/](https://www.bball-index.com/lebron-application/)
by Basic_Commercial_806
19 Comments
Let’s not even touch upon the idea that you think we should start Cam, but Dinwiddie is statistically an upgrade over both D’Lo AND Reaves? Come on now. Anybody can paint any picture they want with cherrypicked advanced stats. Meanwhile, Dinwiddie is worse in every counting stat than both those guys besides in assists.
Dinwiddie is a good player but I think we need to see more from him before we even start thinking about him as a Playoff starter. He’s played like what 2 or 3 games for us? Lol
I think DLO-Dinwiddie-Lebron-Rui-AD with Reaves leading the bench will be our best lineup
What the hell
🤦🏾♂️
Dinwiddie’s best service is as a floor raiser off the bench who can be insurance for DLo having an off game (or series). By starting him you defeat the purpose.
He will be if D’lo has a repeat of last year or Reaves struggles. Otherwise, he’s just fine as the 6th man. And Ham will likely give him like 26-30mpg like he did with Schorder last year.
Nets and Bron fan here. Din is a good player. He had a down year for the Nets because they told him coming into the season that they were:
(1) Going to trade him to a contender any day now, and as a result he was also…
(2) Told to defer all play-making to Simmons, Mikal and Cam Thomas because “reasons”
The situation dragged on all the way until the deadline. They built the offense around Simmons (huge mistake) and then asked a player with suspect handles (Mikal I still love u bro) and another with tunnel vision (Cam Thomas it is getting better) to make plays instead of Din.
As a combo guard with good size Spence can give you serious playoff minutes as a starter or off the bench.
The only drawback to his game is he can get a little thrown off and fall into whining to the refs if he isn’t getting any calls on his drives.
Where’s Vando.
He won’t be a starter but I can definitely see him play 30 mpg on this team.
we are the 9th seed
No. He’s a buyout guy. You use him when DLo or AR aren’t doing what’s needed and Vincent is off. There’s very low odds that all 4 of your rotation guards aren’t hitting their shots and getting others involved. Other than that, he’s there to backup DLo.
Reddish a playoff starter? Dude should be lucky to get playoff minutes. This gotta be Hams burner account
if everyones healthy playoffs are gonna be the core 6 (ad, bron, ar, dlo, vando, rui) and then functionally specner and price replacing dennis and lonnie. it’s a significant upgrade imo.
Playoff starter if we get deeper. He will probably have the 4th most playoff minutes on the team tho.
I still can’t believe he was waived – dude can play
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He could have a big impact in the playoffs – but let’s get there and not be in the play-in before we start getting ahead of ourselves
Similar to Dennis last playoffs in the rotation, plenty of minutes, but not a locked in starter
Advanced starts are starting to become so annoying lol come on man