Tag: Jarred Vanderbilt

Lakers’ Jarred Vanderbilt to guard Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic on Sunday

Jarred Vanderbilt, one of the Lakers’ newcomers and a defensive standout, will look to contain the seemingly unstoppable Luka Doncic.

Since coming to the Los Angeles Lakers in the Russell Westbrook trade, forward Jarred Vanderbilt has been a revelation, particularly on the defensive end.

He has taken on the task of guarding standout wings, and he has shown himself capable of effectively guarding players at multiple positions.

Vanderbilt has the energy, athleticism, effort and desire to fight through screens, help and recover, contest shots and get into the passing lanes to force turnovers.

On Sunday, the Lakers will visit the Dallas Mavericks, which means dealing with Luka Doncic. According to head coach Darvin Ham, Vanderbilt will have the main defensive assignment of covering Doncic.

Doncic causes headaches for everyone. He is averaging 33.2 points, 8.8 rebounds and 8.2 assists per game while shooting 50.5% from the field this season.

However, in six games head-to-head against Vanderbilt, Doncic has been held far below his usual production.

The Lakers will have their hands full, especially if D’Angelo Russell isn’t able to play due to a sprained ankle. However, winning isn’t exactly out of the question for them, even if Russell is out.

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Starters Lakers had vs. Pelicans last week expected to become the norm

It looks like D’Angelo Russell, Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt will remain in the Lakers’ starting lineup for a while.

Armed with a somewhat new roster, the Los Angeles Lakers begin the stretch run of the 2022-23 regular season on Thursday by hosting the defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors.

Despite their struggles of late, the Lakers are within striking distance of not only a play-in tournament spot but also a spot in the top six of the Western Conference, which would mean bypassing the play-in tournament and making the playoffs outright.

In L.A.’s last game, head coach Darvin Ham went with a starting lineup that featured three of the team’s newcomers: D’Angelo Russell and Malik Beasley in the backcourt and Jarred Vanderbilt at one forward spot alongside LeBron James and Anthony Davis.

It appears Ham will stick with that lineup for the foreseeable future.

Via Los Angeles Times:

“The starting lineup Ham used during the Lakers’ last game before the All-Star Game against the (New Orleans) Pelicans featured James, Davis, D’Angelo Russell, Jarred Vanderbilt and Malik Beasley and is expected to become the norm.”

That lineup worked well. The Lakers won, 120-102, while shooting 53% from the field and tallying 32 assists.

Many have clamored for Vanderbilt, an energetic player who has shown tremendous defensive potential and is a good rebounder, to be moved into the starting lineup. He has shown an ability to effectively guard wings and forwards on the perimeter, which can give James some rest on the defensive end and allow him to save more of his energy for offense.

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Lakers look like a betting sleeper after LeBron’s first game since the trade deadline

The Lakers showed some promise Wednesday.

On paper, the Los Angeles Lakers team that took the floor Wednesday against the New Orleans Pelicans can’t hold a light to the one that started the 2021-22 season with the second-best title odds in the NBA.

In reality, it has so much more promise. And +3000 odds make the revamped Lakers a much better gamble.

Hindsight is 20/20, but we know that previous iteration of the Lakers, which featured six potential Hall of Famers, was a terrible fit. They flamed out fast and finished the season 11th in the West and out of the playoffs.

On Wednesday, we saw a team that much better complimented one another. A team that fit better around stars LeBron James and Anthony Davis, one very capable of climbing out of 13th place and potentially competing for a bottom-tier playoff seed, let alone a spot in the play-in tournament. We saw, dare I say, a Western Conference sleeper pick.

It was just one game, but against another projected playoff team higher in the standings, the Lakers dominated from start to finish without necessary hero-ball games from James and Davis, who scored 21 and 28 points, respectively. Fellow starters, and trade deadline additions, D’Angelo Russell, Jarred Vanderbilt and Malik Beasley combined for 35 points to chip in for the 120-102 win. Thirteen different players recorded minutes and 12 scored points.

“I feel really good about what we’ve got brewing, but we need to lock in,” James said. “It’s the first time we’ve all been on the floor together, so we wanted to see what it looks like, and the first 40 minutes looked pretty good.”

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Head coach Darvin Ham will have some work on his hands figuring out minutes and rotations, but it’s a good problem to have with better fitting pieces at his disposal. And there’s still room for improvement. The Lakers only shot 27% from three and 61% from the free throw line.

One game isn’t enough to run to your nearest sportsbook for a Lakers championship ticket. The Denver Nuggets and (the idea of) the Phoenix Suns are still really tough. But if you already have a Lakers bet, you’re probably feeling better about the team’s chances to make some noise after the All-Star break.

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The Lakers learned these 5 key lessons (finally!) at the NBA trade deadline. But was it too late?

Fans should be cautiously optimistic.

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The Los Angeles Lakers were among the most active teams during the NBA trade deadline, and fans should be optimistic about the moves.

Based on what we saw from Lakers executive Rob Pelinka, he clearly learned some valuable lessons from previous blunders that he and his team made earlier in his tenure running basketball operations.

Pelinka and the front office may have made a critical mistake trading for Russell Westbrook, but they possibly reversed at least some of the damage done to the roster. Here is how they managed to do it:

  1. Prioritize youth. Jarred Vanderbilt (23), Mo Bamba (24), Rui Hachimura (25), Malik Beasley (26), D’Angelo Russell (26), and Davon Reed (27) are all under 30 years old. This provides a much better future than their roster did last season when they shockingly employed thirteen different players over 30 years old. Westbrook (34) and Patrick Beverley (34) were clearly past their prime, and now the team is much more youthful.
  2. Space the floor for LeBron and Anthony Davis. Before the trade deadline, only four players in the rotation (minimum: 500 minutes) were shooting better than the league average (35.9 percent) beyond the arc. Bamba (39.8 percent), Russell (39.1 percent), and Beasley (35.9 percent) should help with spacing for James and Davis — who desperately need that from their teammates.
  3. Don’t give too much power to one agency. Only one of the players (Vanderbilt) that the Lakers traded for at the deadline is represented by Klutch. The other players are signed to CAA, Wasserman, Pay-Lay, Priority, and Octagon. This is a stark contrast considering several players that they signed during the past two offseasons (Kendrick Nunn, Lonnie Walker IV, Troy Brown, Juan Toscano-Anderson) were Klutch clients.
  4. If you’re not going to re-sign a guy, get an asset. The Lakers have made several bone-headed decisions by letting valuable assets (e.g. Julius Randle in 2018 or Alex Caruso in 2021) leave in free agency without fetching an asset in return. If the front office had no intentions of re-signing these guys, they should have traded them before their contracts expired. This time around, they were able to net draft capital in exchange for Thomas Bryant — who was going to command a larger contract than they were prepared to offer him this summer.
  5. Protect those picks! Former Lakers executive Mitch Kupchak included protections on his massive trades involving Steve Nash (which worked out big time!) and Dwight Howard. Pelinka hadn’t previously done that, though, and the Lakers royally screwed up by failing to protect their picks when they traded for Anthony Davis. Even though they included a pick to move off Russell Westbrook, the 2027 first-rounder is at least protected if it falls between 1 and 4.

The Lakers (26-31) are five games below .500 and but just two games back for a spot in the Western Conference play-in tournament.

The Tip-Off

(Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images)

NBA content from around the USA TODAY Sports network.

The four-team trade deadline deal that sent James Wiseman to the Pistons was briefly in jeopardy after the Warriors alleged that the Trail Blazers were misleading about the health of Gary Payton II.

Portland reportedly had Payton “gut through” an injury:

“The Athletic’s Jason Quick previously reported that Payton indicated he didn’t want to play for Portland any longer.

Trail Blazers general manager Joe Cronin said that player safety is “super important” to the organization and they were “super confident” that Payton was healthy, per Sean Highkin.

He added that the team would not have let Payton return to the court if they did not believe he was physically able to play.”

The trade still went through but this is an ugly look if it is indeed true.

One To Watch

Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

(All odds via Tipico.)

Trail Blazers (-135, -2.5) vs. Lakers (+115), O/U 235.5, 10:00 PM ET

LeBron is going to miss this game due to left ankle soreness, but it’ll be fascinating to see how the new additions in Los Angeles fare in this game at the Moda Center in Portland.

Shootaround

(Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

—LeBron James was booed at the Super Bowl, so naturally, he put on an imaginary crown

— Josh Hart had a perfect three-word response to entering the Knicks’ locker room for the first time

— Sixers Wire’s Ky Carlin reviews four backup big men Philly should consider on the buyout market

— HoopsHype’s Yossi Gozlan recaps the winners, losers, and trends from the NBA trade deadline

The projected rotation for the Lakers with D’Angelo Russell and Mo Bamba sort of looks like a contender

Wait a second … can this team maybe make some noise in the playoffs?!

After months and months of rumors, the Lakers have finally agreed to trade Russell Westbrook. They even got a decent value for him in return.

Westbrook, who had a heated verbal exchange with Lakers head coach Darvin Ham before he was eventually traded to the Jazz as part of a three-team deal, will have his minutes replaced in the rotation by D’Angelo Russell as well as Jarred Vanderbilt and Malik Beasley.

The Lakers, who also sent away Damian Jones and Juan Toscano-Anderson as part of the trade package, will look very different next time they are on the floor.

Their front office made multiple additional moves, including trading away Thomas Bryant and Patrick Beverley while also trading for Mo Bamba.

Based on what we know so far, here is how we would project the rotation:

Why Wednesday’s trade is a big win for the Lakers and Rob Pelinka

After 18 months of mediocrity and pain, the Lakers have taken a big step toward respectability with Wednesday’s Russell Westbrook trade.

Since they traded for Russell Westbrook two summers ago, the Los Angeles Lakers have lived in a netherworld of endless ridicule and mediocre play.

Although Westbrook played better for a spell earlier this season after being moved to the bench, his athletic decline and awkward fit stuck out like sore thumbs, and many felt the team was being held down by his mere presence.

General manager Rob Pelinka has been subjected to a boatload of criticism, not just for acquiring a bad fit such as Westbrook, but for also wasting assets such as Kyle Kuzma, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and the team’s 2021 first-round draft pick, all of which were jettisoned to get the guard.

But Los Angeles took a big step back toward respectability by dealing Westbrook and a lottery-protected 2027 first-round pick for D’Angelo Russell, Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt in a three-team trade first reported late Wednesday and announced Thursday morning.

While this trade may not make the team championship contenders, at least not yet, it was pretty much a slam dunk for it and its beleaguered executive.

The Lakers scored a major win with this move for several reasons.

D’Angelo Russell/Russell Westbrook trade: How it impacts Lakers, Wolves and Jazz

The eve of the trade deadline featured one of the bigger names that many were anticipating to get dealt. Wednesday’s three-team trade saw the Lakers end the Russell Westbrook era by moving him, Damian Jones, Juan Toscano-Anderson, and a 2027 …

The eve of the trade deadline featured one of the bigger names that many were anticipating to get dealt. Wednesday’s three-team trade saw the Lakers end the Russell Westbrook era by moving him, Damian Jones, Juan Toscano-Anderson, and a 2027 first-round pick to the Utah Jazz for a package that includes former Laker D’Angelo Russell as well as Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt. In exchange for Russell, the Minnesota Timberwolves acquired Mike Conley and Nickeil Alexander-Walker as well as several second-round picks from the Jazz.

Here is the breakdown of the trade and how it impacts each team.

Lakers title odds bounce back in a big way after three-team trade

This was a win for the Lakers. The odds don’t lie.

The Los Angeles Lakers desperately needed to make a move at this year’s trade deadline, and management delivered Wednesday.

LA landed D’Angelo Russell, Jarred Vanderbilt and Malik Beasley in a three-team trade with the Utah Jazz and Minnesota Timberwolves, bolstering their roster for a playoff push in the stretch run of the season.

At 25-30, the Lakers are 13th in the West and two games out of a play-in spot, but their title odds jumped from +5000 before the trade to +2500 afterwards at BetMGM. The new odds are near the +2000 LA had reached after being rumored to land Kyrie Irving, and they rank seventh in the West.

The odds for Minnesota and Utah didn’t move one bit after the deal, though that was expected at least on the part of the Jazz, who are rebuilding.

As for the Timberwolves, it’s still not completely clear what they’re trying to do.

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Russell Westbrook-D’Angelo Russell trade has been finalized

After months of speculation, the Lakers have finally traded Russell Westbrook and will be getting D’Angelo Russell and two other players.

Early on Wednesday afternoon, reports surfaced that the Los Angeles Lakers were in serious discussions with the Minnesota Timberwolves regarding a trade that would bring them guard D’Angelo Russell while sending out Russell Westbrook.

The proposed trade also involved the Utah Jazz and would have Westbrook become a member of their squad.

According to ESPN NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski, the trade is now final.

In addition to getting Russell, the Lakers will also land big man Jarred Vanderbilt and guard Malik Beasley. This deal will make them significantly younger. Westbrook is 34, while Russell, Vanderbilt and Beasley are 26, 23 and 26, respectively.

Los Angeles will also give up forward Juan Toscano-Anderson and center Damian Jones, as well as a 2027 first-round draft pick that will have some lottery protection.

Russell is having a nice season, averaging 17.9 points and 6.2 assists per game while shooting 46.5% overall and 39.1% from 3-point range.

His shooting percentages have been up and down over the years, but if he continues to shoot well from downtown, he will significantly help L.A. address its biggest need: 3-point shooting.

Russell played his first two seasons with the Purple and Gold before being sent to the Brooklyn Nets in a deal that brought Kyle Kuzma to the team.

Vanderbilt is a 6-foot-8, 214-pound big man who is a good rebounder and has some defensive potential. Beasley has been inconsistent, but has potential as an instant offense player.

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Report: Jazz trade Sixers’ trade target Jarred Vanderbilt to Lakers

Jarred Vanderbilt, a trade target of the Philadelphia 76ers, is now off the board as he’s headed to the Los Angeles Lakers.

The NBA trade deadline is here and the floodgates appear to be opening before Thursday’s 3 p.m. EST trade buzzer.

The Brooklyn Nets and the Dallas Mavericks kicked action off on Feb. 5 when the Nets sent Kyrie Irving to the Mavericks in a blockbuster deal that shook up the Eastern Conference. The Mavs will team Irving with Luka Doncic for at least the rest of this season.

The Philadelphia 76ers haven’t made a move yet, but one guy they had their eyes on, Jarred Vanderbilt, is off the board.

The Jazz sent Vanderbilt to the Los Angeles Lakers in a blockbuster deal that also included the Minnesota Timberwolves sending D’Angelo Russell to LA and Russell Westbrook head to the Utah Jazz in a three-team trade.

With Vanderbilt off the board, the Sixers will turn to other options such as Nerlens Noel, Naz Reid and Andre Drummond. It will be interesting to see where Daryl Morey and Co. will go.

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