The Los Angeles Lakers will be good this season. That’s what happens when you have Luka Dončić and LeBron James on the same team with a handful of good to great role players around them. I believe this team will win loads of games and compete for a top-three seed in the Western Conference.
The center position is still kind of a mess.
It’s better than it was last year, surely, thanks to some free agency luck this offseason when the Trail Blazers cut ties with Deandre Ayton and he fell into the Lakers’ laps. But Ayton is anything but a consistent presence on the low block. If anything, he’s a frustratingly inconsistent presence at the position. And now the Lakers are banking on him to be their every night, 30-plus minute per game center with no real backup plan, other than praying that his off games can be mitigated by the brilliance of the playmakers around him.
Is it the worst plan in the world? Not really, because Ayton’s new teammates truly are brilliant and his role in Los Angeles will be markedly smaller than it was in Portland or Phoenix for that matter. If he can master the low-volume, high-efficiency role, then maybe center doesn’t look like as much of a
Ayton also won’t be able to completely hide in the background for the Lakers. Luka relies a lot on his center, and some nights the Lakers will need him to dominayton (sorry) and he’s going to need to prove that he can do that when called upon. Remember, Ayton got cut from the Portland Trail Blazers for 20 year-old rookie Yang Hansen. The team, which drafted a center in the first round last year, drafted another center in the first round this year, even while Ayton was still on the roster. That’s how ready they were to move on from him.
Can any of the Lakers centers be called upon nightly?
Behind Ayton, the center position gets very scary, very quickly. Jaxson Hayes serves as the presumed backup five, and Maxi Kleber — who the Lakers acquired in the Luka deal — could play some spot minutes if he’s healthy, but hasn’t played more than 43 games in three seasons. I don’t expect Christian Koloko, who the Lakers signed this offseason, to be much of a factor either.
This might not be a reason to fret. Like I said, adding Ayton is an upgrade, full stop. But if the Lakers want to be contenders in the West, there can’t be a true weak spot in the lineup. We just watched the Thunder win it all because they basically don’t have any holes on the roster — especially in the frontcourt — toppling the Pacers, who didn’t have a ton of center depth but at least had the reliable Myles Turner at the five.
Do the Lakers even have that level of reliability heading into 2025-26? I’m not so sure.