A signing that is reaping early-season rewards for the Los Angeles Lakers is Jake LaRavia, who is a young and promising 3-and-D forward.
After showing flashes with the Memphis Grizzlies and Sacramento Kings, he is looking to establish himself as a winning player. Transitioning to a big stage in Los Angeles is not easy, and LaRavia’s role has already changed numerous times with players in and out of the lineup.
The Lakers are finally fully healthy though and the 24-year-old has settled into a bench role. Being a sixth man on most nights appears to be where head coach JJ Redick likes to utilize LaRavia and the forward thinks he needs to bring defensive energy when he enters the game.
“I just try to be as physical as I can,” LaRavia said. “Defensively, trying to play passing lanes, disrupt the ball, getting steals, deflections. That’s kind of what me and [Marcus] Smart have been doing well this year. But now that we’re in the second unit, whenever the starting unit may come off a little slow or whatever happens or even if we’re already going, we kind of just come in and our job is to provide the juice every game. And just to come in and be disruptive defensively.”
Offense is not an issue for this Lakers team with plenty of options to go. The problem is finding players who take pride on the defensive end. To LaRavia’s credit, he wants to hang his hat on doing the little things to win games.
“I mean as far as consistency, it’s like controlling what I can,” he said. “Which is the defensive side of the ball, crashing, getting extra possessions, rebounds, I’m not going to score the ball every night. Because we have so many offensive talents, they are going to have nights where they’re going. I will be able to get those easy off-ball cuts, stuff like that, those open 3s. But, there might be nights where I score the 20 points or there might be nights where I have four points, but I’m loading up the stat sheet. Figuring out what each game is going to be for me and then playing into that role.”
Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves and LeBron James have all missed some games, which altered everyone’s roles. For LaRavia, he was asked to be a scoring option on some nights and he delivered in a big way, as seen against the Minnesota Timberwolves on the road.
Now that everyone is back healthy, he detailed how his role has shifted throughout this early portion of the regular season.
“Earlier on, it was more so being super aggressive offensively just cause it was me and AR [Austin Reaves] or me and Luka and AR and Bron were out or whatever it was. My mindset going to the games was be super aggressive offensively then still kind of take care of everything else. My mindset is still being aggressive, it’s just kind of in a different way because I’m playing with all those guys out there. So again, just trying to figure out what the game is.”
What the forward described about his role on the team is the process of becoming a winning player. Not many players can mold themselves into whatever a coach needs on a certain night, but LaRavia has been a professional and done great things for L.A. so far.
Jake LaRavia: It was ‘dope’ getting to play with LeBron James for first time with Lakers
After plenty of early-season injuries, the Lakers finally played their first game fully healthy against the Utah Jazz. For Jake LaRavia, he played his first game with LeBron James and admitted that it was a ‘dope’ experience.
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