Starting A Fight

Why starting lineups matter until they don't

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Being a starter in professional sports matters. It’s a badge of honor, a signal to the masses that you are one of the team’s best players, and with that designation typically comes a higher salary.

Sometimes, however, who is a starter and who isn’t is more important to fans and players than it is to teams, and especially, coaches.

Case in point, yesterday I sent out a tweet (Twitter is still operational!) regarding the Lakers’ starting lineup:

Trevor Lane @Trevor_Lane

Not a surprise, but Darvin Ham did share after practice today that the plan is to continue to start Pat, Lonnie, Brown Jr, LeBron, and Davis. Thomas Bryant's return won't cause Davis to start at power forward for the time being.

Fans did not take this news well, with some upset about Anthony Davis continuing to be forced to play all of his minutes at center, while others were dismayed that the under-performing Patrick Beverley remains in the starting lineup despite the return of Dennis Schroder.

milyong @EmilFike

@Trevor_Lane They will continue to run this until they get the worst record breaking in the lakers. Lebron and AD will continue to get hurt going against bigs by playing pf/center positions.

Yank @allaboutballz02

@Trevor_Lane U got TB back to play the 5 and he decides not to when AD clearly said he doesnt want to play the 5.

JoeyyLakers @joeyylakers

@Trevor_Lane Can’t believe we gave up talen for pat like wtf

cdub @LA_stateofmind1

@Trevor_Lane No reason to start Pat. It’s proven he’s a - player. So why not start Austin and try to start the game with a lead?

And so on. The problem is there is a disconnect between the way fans and often players view the starting lineup. It’s seen as a meritocracy, where the 5 best players are starters and everyone else slots in accordingly, but that’s not accurate.

Coaches look at the starting lineup as a piece to the puzzle, with the ultimate goal of creating combinations on the floor that lead to team success. Sometimes that means the 5 players seen as the best on the team start, but sometimes it doesn’t.

Case in point, Russell Westbrook just may make a run for 6th Man Of The Year this season, and while he has his flaws, he’s certainly one of the 5 most talented players on the Lakers. Yet it’s clear now that the best path forward for the team is with Westbrook coming off of the bench. His talent isn’t best suited for the team in a starting role.

Perhaps he’s an extreme example due to his poor fit on the floor with LeBron James. The Lakers need to stagger their minutes as much as possible to minimize the time when Westbrook and James share the floor, thus Westbrook’s minutes need to mostly come with the reserves, but the bottom line is that starting jobs aren’t solely based on who the best players are.

Continuity matters, as the Lakers found out last season when Frank Vogel trotted out an absurd 41 different starting lineups in an 82-game season¹. For a team that is stuck in a cycle of integrating a nearly entirely new roster every season² , finding some semblance of normalcy on a night-to-night basis may be an even more important endeavor.

It certainly must have played a role in Ham’s decision to turn to the struggling Kendrick Nunn to fill in for an ill Beverley on the road in Utah a few weeks ago. Losing a rotation player can be disruptive enough, but plugging the hole by calling up a 2nd stringer can have the effect of destabilizing both the starting and bench rotations. In that case, there is a benefit to pushing a deep-bench player into the starting five, as Ham did with Nunn. Does their play warrant a starting job? No, but for the team, it may be preferable to do that rather than cannibalizing the bench rotation.

Of course, all of this may also be overthinking things. Sometimes players don’t start because they simply aren’t starters at the moment.

Schroder has played a grand total of 9 preseason minutes for the team this season. Bryant has likewise yet to appear in a regular-season game and struggled in the preseason. Throwing either into the deep end in their season debut would probably be doing a disservice to them by not affording them the opportunity to dip their toes in the water first.

Reaves, on the other hand, indeed has an argument to start in Beverley’s place, but if and when that decision comes, Ham would prefer to make it a permanent one. Constantly shuffling the starting lineup isn’t a good thing, so adding Reaves now before seeing how the team responds to Schroder and Bryant’s return only increases the likelihood of future disruptions.

Besides, as I’ve said, starting jobs aren’t necessarily awarded based on merit. Minutes, however, are. Should Beverley continue to struggle and/or it becomes apparent that Bryant is the piece that allows Davis to play his preferred power-forward spot, those things can be addressed by tweaking the rotation for the time being. Shift more minutes to Reaves or Schroder and away from Beverley, add minutes where Bryant and Davis share the floor, and off you go until you settle upon a long-term starting group.

Simple and effective, and certainly not worth making a fuss about.

1. This wasn’t entirely Vogel’s fault as the team dealt with players missing games due to injury, illness, and suspension.

2. Shout out to the Front Office!