Marcus Smart<\/a> can deliver. The coach recalled the forehead full of stitches he once received courtesy of the former NBA defensive player of the year.<\/p>\n\u201cToughness,\u201d Redick said of what Smart will bring to the team. \u201cI already told him this: We need his voice as part of communication. His competitive spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Lakers ranked 17th in defensive rating last season, giving up 113.8 points per 100 possessions. The 31-year-old Smart, who signed with the Lakers after the Washington Wizards bought out his contract, still grades in the 80th percentile of every defensive metric, Redick said.<\/p>\n
Doncic\u2019s defensive improvement at EuroBasket drew raves from Redick, but the star guard will remain far from a defensive anchor. With Reaves and James, who will turn 41 in December, and Ayton, Smart\u2019s defensive prowess and career 32.4% three-point shooting could be vital to solidifying the potential starting lineup.<\/p>\n
Redick named his starting lineup before training camp last season but, in a step of growth for the second-year head coach, declined to disclose his plans this year. He learned what often happens to the best-laid plans.<\/p>\n
Last year\u2019s intended leading group of James, Reaves, Anthony Davis, Rui Hachimura and D\u2019Angelo Russell started only seven games together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text clearfix”> Marcus Smart controls the ball during a game between the Washington Wizards and Milwaukee Bucks in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":263728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[29243,1582,276,3372,52369,137882,1910,8601,2961,8604,137883,224,5337,3365,3663,137881,137884,134317,3007,1628],"class_list":{"0":"post-263727","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-austin-reave","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-deandre-ayton","12":"tag-doncic","13":"tag-focal-point","14":"tag-game","15":"tag-james","16":"tag-la","17":"tag-lakers","18":"tag-lebron-era","19":"tag-los-angeles","20":"tag-losangeles","21":"tag-luka-doncic","22":"tag-minnesota","23":"tag-pelinka","24":"tag-productive-offseason","25":"tag-redick","26":"tag-team","27":"tag-year"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}