The Los Angeles Lakers recently made the long-awaited decision to bring in talented center Christian Wood on a two-year contract. The mutual interest had been reported for quite some time, but it all came to fruition earlier this week and Wood now joins a Lakers center rotation that includes Anthony Davis and Jaxson Hayes.
Prior to Wood’s signing, Davis and Hayes were the only centers on the roster. This meant that, for the third season in a row, Davis was going to be playing a bulk of his minutes at the center position. Davis primarily played power forward during his first two regular seasons in L.A. but his success at center in the playoffs prompted the Lakers to shift to him as a closer to full-time five.
But Davis was reportedly looking to move away from that and return to the power forward minutes he saw during the championship 2019-20 regular season, according to Dave McMenamin of ESPN:
Sources told ESPN that Davis made it clear to the organization he wanted to have more support at center so he wouldn’t have to play so much 5 during the regular season.
Davis reportedly asking for the Lakers to get him more support at center is unsurprising. In 2019-20, Davis spent 60% of his regular season minutes at the power forward position, according to Cleaning the Glass. In 2020-21, when the Lakers had Marc Gasol and Montrezl Harrell, that number was 91%.
But in 2021-22, he played 76% of his minutes at center and reached 99% of minutes at center last season. The Lakers completely flipped their roster construction, and while it’s unclear if it’s directly correlated, Davis spent significant portions of both seasons injured.
Perhaps Davis and his camp believe a return to power forward could increase the amount of games he can play in a season. Or, at least, it could preserve his body to play a little longer and extend his career.
But either way, the Wood and Hayes signings could signal a chance for Davis to play more minutes at a position he potentially feels more comfortable in. Despite that though, the expectation is still that Davis will start games at center, although that could still change.
Lakers roster reportedly set
The signing of Wood to a two-year deal is reportedly the end of the Lakers offseason moves. They have gone into training camp with 14 players on their roster — and one open spot — in multiple years during the Rob Pelinka era, preserving flexibility to make a roster move at any time.
This leaves them with a depth chart of D’Angelo Russell, Gabe Vincent, Austin Reaves, Max Christie, Cam Reddish and Jalen Hood-Schifino at the guard spots; LeBron James, Rui Hachimura, Jarred Vanderbilt, Maxwell Lewis and Taurean Prince at the forward spots; and Davis, Wood and Hayes at center.
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