Lakers newsletter: Austin Reaves and the minutes game

Hey everyone, it’s Dan Woike, beat writer for the L.A. Times. Welcome to a holiday edition of The Times’ Lakers newsletter. I’m busy. You’re busy. Let’s get after it.

A minute on minutes

Go into any pro sports locker room and ask a player who isn’t one of the top stars about their minutes or playing time, and you’ll almost certainly get the same public and private responses.

Publicly, you’ll hear that people are willing to do what’s best for the team and that they only control what they, the player, can control. And playing time isn’t one of those things.

Privately, almost everyone wants to play more.

That truth is unavoidable. But in the modern NBA, where star players dictate so much of the game action, how the coach divvies up those minutes is one of — if not the single — biggest ways you can impact the outcome from the sidelines.

Lakers coach Darvin Ham’s decisions when it comes to that have been regularly criticized by fans — it’s a pretty easy target to be fair considering how simple it is to understand — and after the Lakers lost Thursday in Minnesota, he directly addressed his decisions regarding one player — Austin Reaves.

Against the Timberwolves, Reaves was efficient in scoring 20 points on 50% shooting from the field — but he played 10 fewer minutes than four of the Lakers’ starters. The fifth, Rui Hachimura, played 34 minutes to Reaves’ 27.

“I think where he’s at is a good place. It keeps him fresh. Fatigue is not setting in as much,” Ham said of Reaves’ playing time. “He plays so damn hard the way there are times where he’s gonna be tired. But for the most part, you know, I think his minutes are efficient. His play is efficient and he’s thriving in that reserve role where he can be featured.

Lakers forward Rui Hachimura tries to score against Timberwolves forward Karl-Anthony Towns during the first half of the game Thursday in Minneapolis.

(Abbie Parr / Associated Press)

“But also we can manage his minutes. There’s times where we run them in long stretches and we feel awful about it because fatigue makes cowards of us all. And we want to as much as possible try to protect all of our guys from having to experience that and it increases the chance of injury.”

Reaves has missed time the last two seasons because of hamstring injuries, but while he was banged up to start the season after playing for Team USA, he has been relatively healthy (minus an illness) for the bulk of the season.

“Regardless of if it’s 35, 27, 20, I’m gonna go out there and compete as hard as I know how. Try to play the game the right way,” Reaves said. “I’d love to play 48 minutes, it’s just not realistic. But like I said, I’ll play the minutes that Coach gives me and try to compete in those minutes so it’ll help our team be successful.”

Now it could be possible Ham sees some potential for diminishing returns — it’s a thing for nearly every player, a point where the minutes stop resulting in positive outcomes. But last spring, Reaves played nearly seven minutes more per game (36.2) than he’s averaging this season. While he definitely showed signs of fatigue, particularly against the Warriors in the second round of the playoffs, that was with him chasing after Desmond Bane, Klay Thompson and Stephen Curry in the first two rounds — defensive assignments that could easily go elsewhere with the Lakers’ revamped roster.

Reaves is currently fifth in minutes per game on the Lakers, behind Anthony Davis, LeBron James, Taurean Prince and D’Angelo Russell. He was third behind only James and Davis last postseason.

Another player caught a bit in a minutes crunch has been Hachimura, who was sixth in minutes last postseason but is eighth so far this season.

“I mean, it’s hard, but it is what it is,” he said about his up-and-down minutes . “That’s what they decided. It’s not like nothing I can control, you know, I just got to play my minutes and do what I can do, you know, defensively, offensively on both ends. Just be aggressive. Play harder. Bring energy from the bench, off the bench.”

The flip to all of this is Prince, who is playing 30.9 minutes per game — the most in his career and eight minutes more per night than he played last season. After a rough start to the season at home, he’s now up to 39.2% from three-point range — establishing himself as the Lakers’ best shooter — a skill they could certainly use more of.

Add in Cam Reddish’s emergence as a wing defender as well as injuries to Jarred Vanderbilt and Gabe Vincent and Ham’s rotations have not yet been able to take a consistent shape.

“I think some games we’re good and some games we’re not. We still haven’t even seen our postseason lineup that we were successful with last year, right? Remember that lineup?” Russell said Thursday. “We haven’t even gotten to that because of injuries and things like that. Every game feels like something new, a new start, figuring it out. OK, new guy, new this.”

Song of the week

“Good Intentions” — Toad the Wet Sprocket

Not much to say here other than I’m sorry if the gift I got you stinks. I promise I tried.

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