With Jarred Vanderbilt out for the foreseeable future, Los Angeles Lakers head coach Darvin Ham turned to Rui Hachimura to fill his spot in the starting five.
Hachimura started for the Lakers against the New York Knicks and Charlotte Hornets, with both ending up as wins. Taurean Prince had been the fifth starter for Los Angeles for most of the 2023-24 season, but Ham explained that he wanted to have more size in the frontcourt.
The Lakers have struggled to generate offense without LeBron James or Anthony Davis on the floor, but adding someone like Hachimura gives them another option in the halfcourt. Although Hachimura hasn’t exploded offensively, he gives the team another dimension.
James said he likes the new starting five and explained what Hachimura can do with the group, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“We’re big,” James said. “We have a lot of length, a lot of athleticism. Rui works well with us and we’re just trying to find him, especially when he’s running out and has early seals in the post or whatever the case may be, mismatches. So he works well with us.”
Davis chimed in and added that Hachimura will draw smaller defenders on him by virtue of opposing teams looking to slow down himself and James:
“He’s 6’8 so we can post him up,” Davis said. He’s a good rebounder, good finisher. We try to expose that. The bigger guys are probably gonna be on me and Bron so then they can try to put a good defender who is usually a bigger guy on DLo and AR, so Rui is usually left with a smaller guy. So we just try to take advantage of that and have him post up or duck in off the glass to try to get him going.”
Los Angeles’ bread and butter the past few years has been their size and physicality, and starting Hachimura is a return to that brand of basketball. The current starting group of D’Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves, Hachimura, James and Davis got run in the postseason and is arguably the team’s best lineup.
Rui Hachimura credits Phil Handy for telling him to shoot
When Vanderbilt got hurt in the win against the Celtics, Hachimura was called upon to step up. He wound up scoring 10 points in the fourth quarter and he later credited Phil Handy for telling him just to shoot because he was getting wide-open looks.
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