The Los Angeles Lakers won the 2020 NBA championship with Anthony Davis playing a majority of his minutes at power forward. The team was even more dominant when Davis was at center, but that was intentionally used more sparingly to preserve Davis during the long season. Because of those numbers, though, the Lakers went away from Davis as a power forward.
In the four seasons since, Davis has almost exclusively played center. And the Lakers have rarely even employed big men that could play next to Davis for significant periods of time. For one of the first times in the last four years, they have someone who could potentially do that with Jaxson Hayes.
Davis and Hayes played 89 minutes over 19 games together last season. While that’s an extremely small sample size, the Lakers were elite defensively in those minutes, posting a 103.5 defensive rating and a plus-2.4 net rating. They absolutely dominated the glass, posting the best OREB% of any two-man Laker lineup that played at least 50 minutes together.
So with a new head coach and a possible new philosophy this season, the door may be open for Hayes and Davis to play more minutes together. Hayes is certainly excited about that prospect, he told Dave McMenamin of ESPN:
“Definitely. Honestly, whenever you get in the game with someone like that that’s gonna bring more attention to them so that could open some stuff up for myself or for us to get another action with me and another guard, maybe. Stuff like that. So I love playing with AD. Honestly for me, he’s normally in the dunker so that’s somebody they don’t want to help off which could get me a lob or something so I love playing with him.
Hayes doesn’t just think that those lineups will benefit him, though. He also believes the Lakers will benefit defensively against some of the elite centers in the league:
“We’re all big guys that like to play defense, that’s been our thing. That’s why the team brought us here. We happen to do a lot of other stuff but our focus is defense so I feel like that why we’ll be good with this group.”
The stats show that Hayes is right in this assessment, and new head coach JJ Redick feels more likely to play two-big lineups than his predecessor. If Hayes can play strong defense at the rim and continue to be an athletic lob threat, there is no reason why a Hayes and Davis combination wouldn’t work.
JJ Redick planning to get minutes for Anthony Davis at forward
JJ Redick experimented with a two-big lineup consisting of Jaxson Hayes and Anthony Davis and he explained what he liked out of the look.
“It’s definitely something we could use in our rotation,” Redick said. “What I really like is having AD at the four and him being able to be in that switching group while still having some size at the five with Jaxson. That part of it I like a lot.”
Davis has pleaded for years to let him go back to playing the four as he believes it’s his more natural position. Hayes is typically not that great as the lone big man on the floor, but paired with someone like Davis he’s able to better protect the rim.
On the flip side, having someone like Hayes to protect the paint allows Davis to play a free safety-like role on the floor where he can roam around and cause havoc for opposing teams.
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