{"id":330395,"date":"2025-12-05T23:46:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T23:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/330395\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T23:46:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T23:46:07","slug":"lakers-notes-vanderbilt-smart-doncic-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/330395\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers Notes: Vanderbilt, Smart, Doncic, More"},"content":{"rendered":"

After playing in each of the Lakers\u2018 first 14 games of the season, veteran forward Jarred Vanderbilt<\/a> has been a DNP-CD for the team\u2019s past six contests. Vanderbilt has dealt with numerous injuries that have limited his availability in recent years, but he\u2019s healthy now, prompting head coach JJ Redick to explain earlier this week why the 26-year-old isn\u2019t in the rotation.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been a pro. He\u2019s been great,\u201d Redick said (Twitter link<\/a> via Dave McMenamin of ESPN). \u201cIn the most recent stay-ready (game) that we had this week, he was great. He\u2019s been a great teammate, so no surprise there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had communicated to him, even before LeBron (James)<\/a> came back, that there were certain things that he needed to be able to do consistently to play before LeBron came back, after LeBron came back. And that there potentially was going to be a numbers crunch because we were probably going to play a nine-man rotation. And that was just the reality.<\/p>\n

Redick went on to say that he didn\u2019t want to tweak the rotation too much during a hot streak \u2013 the Lakers had won seven games in a row prior to Monday\u2019s loss to Phoenix \u2013 but that Vanderbilt could eventually find himself regaining a more regular role, especially if the team loses anyone due to an injury.<\/p>\n

We have more on the Lakers:<\/p>\n

Lakers guard Marcus Smart<\/a> (lower back injury management) will miss a fourth straight game on Thursday in Toronto, while star guard Luka Doncic<\/a> sits out for personal reasons. According to Johnny Askounis of Eurohoops<\/a>, Doncic has returned to his home country of Slovenia for the birth of his second child. His status for games in Boston on Friday and Philadelphia on Sunday is unclear.
\nLaw Murray of The Athletic<\/a> and Thuc Nhi Nguyen of The Los Angeles Times<\/a> take stock of where the Lakers stand at the one-quarter mark of the 2025\/26 season. At 15-5, the team is on pace for a 60-win season, but has a relatively modest net rating of +3.1, the 12th-best mark<\/a> in the NBA. The Lakers\u2019 record is buoyed by the fact that they\u2019re the only team without a loss<\/a> in a \u201cclutch\u201d game, defined as a game within five points with fewer than five minutes remaining \u2014 Los Angeles is 6-0 in that situation.
\nWithin a look at a few potential contenders trying to challenge Oklahoma City in the Western Conference, Kelly Iko of Yahoo Sports<\/a> notes that three-point shooting is an area the Lakers may look to address on the trade market. Los Angeles currently ranks 25th in the NBA in made three-pointers per game.
\nIf Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a> were to request a trade out of Milwaukee, could the Lakers make a legitimate play for him? Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report<\/a> considers that question and outlines what a trade package centered around breakout guard Austin Reaves<\/a> might look like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After playing in each of the Lakers\u2018 first 14 games of the season, veteran forward Jarred Vanderbilt has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,96080,11473,9034,85],"class_list":["post-330395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-jarred-vanderbilt","tag-luka-doncic","tag-marcus-smart","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}