Will Darvin Ham's 11th Lakers Starting Lineup Stick This Time?

LA rode a new (old) first five to an upset W against OKC last night.

Meet the new Los Angeles Lakers starting five, same as the first Los Angeles Lakers starting five. 

Per Jovan Buha of The Athletic, Ham remarked postgame last night that the Lakers "have a plan" to start D'Angelo Russell at point guard, Austin Reaves at shooting guard, Taurean Prince at small forward, LeBron James at power forward and Anthony Davis at center going forward for the club's "foreseeable future." 

This seems to suggest that last week's declared long-term starting lineup, which featured power forward Rui Hachimura in for Russell, and LA's more recent starting group, which had small forward Cam Reddish in for Hachimura/Russell, are off the table for now.

Ham explained his thinking with this new group:

Darvin Ham said this new starting lineup was put together to have “as much skill and shot making around our two captains as possible.”

— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) January 16, 2024

Here's his full postgame presser:

Darvin Ham discusses his takeaways from tonight's win over Oklahoma City. pic.twitter.com/wAfkzxdyKt

— Spectrum SportsNet (@SpectrumSN) January 16, 2024

As Buha notes in a new piece today, Los Angeles via Ham has trotted out 11 different starting lineups through the club's first 41 games (i.e. exactly halfway through the 2023-24 regular season), and this group is of course also the first starting lineup Ham briefly trotted out to kick off the year.

As far as two-man combinations go for LA, the Russell-Reaves duo's -5.5 net points ranks 19th out of the club's top 20 tandems. Incidentally, the Lakers' top perimeter twosome is Russell and now-starting small forward Taurean Prince, who register at a fairly uninspiring 0.0 net rating.