"We’re going to tinker": Despite confirming 4 starters, including LeBron James, Darvin Ham says LA Lakers are going to experiment

LA Lakers coach Darvin Ham made headlines on Thursday when he proclaimed that D’Angelo Russell will be the Lakers’ starting point guard entering the 2023-24 NBA season.

Russell joins LA’s Big 3 of LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Austin Reaves in the starting lineup, leaving just one starting frontcourt spot available. However, even with 80% of his starting lineup locked in, it appears that Ham has plans to experiment with LA’s new and improved roster.

During Thursday’s media availability session, Ham spoke about his goals entering training camp. The coach said that he plans to use training camp to test out a variety of lineups, including both smaller and bigger lineups.

Ham added that he will let players try playing multiple positions, including new Lakers signings Taurean Prince and Christian Wood:

“That’s what training camp is for, in my opinion,” Ham said. “We’re going to tinker and entertain all different sorts of lineups, whether it’s small ball, whether it’s going big.

"If we have Austin at the point or Taurean at the 2 or Rui (Hachimura) at the 3 or LeBron at the 3 and Christian and AD. It’s been such a joy to come in and look at this team as it’s currently constructed and just visualize all the different things we can do with it, and the type of players that we have.”

Ham also added that his players are open to experimenting and have already began doing so at LeBron James’ recent minicamp. So, Ham expects LA to have multiple different lineups ready to use come the start of the regular season:

“These guys are open for whatever we want to try and whatever we want to attempt to try to make work,” Ham said.

“I mean, it was already done at LeBron’s minicamp, just a variation of different combinations of players, and that’ll continue through training camp. We’ll land on what we need to land on, but we’ll have several different lineups we can throw at opposing teams for sure.”

(17:14 mark below)

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Gabe Vincent is fine coming off the bench for the LA Lakers

Newly signed LA Lakers point guard Gabe Vincent

One of the players who was expected to compete for a starting spot during the LA Lakers’ training camp is newly signed point guard Gabe Vincent.

He's coming off a 2023 NBA Finals run with the Miami Heat, starting all 22 games. However, it now appears that Vincent has no problem coming off the bench for LA.

After Darvin Ham named D’Angelo Russell his starting PG, Vincent told Sportskeeda’s Mark Medina that he's willing to accept any role to help the Lakers win:

“I just go in there and be me,” Vincent said. “That’s something for D Ham to worry about. I’m not the coach. I don’t set lineups. I just go out there and do my job.

"I’ll do whatever I can to help this team win games and help this organization win games. As I’ve seen in the past, every night doesn’t always look the same. With that big picture in mind with trying to help us win, I’ll wear whatever hat is needed.”

Vincent signed a three-year, $33 million contract with the LA Lakers in July. The deal was considered by many to be one of the biggest bargain deals of the offseason.

He's expected to offer the Lakers additional shooting as well as extensive playoff experience. So, that shouldn’t change regardless of Vincent's role with the team.

Vincent averaged 9.4 points, 2.1 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 0.9 steals and 1.7 3-pointers per game on 40.2% shooting over 68 games with Miami last season. He then averaged 12.7 ppg, 1.4 rpg, 3.5 apg, 0.9 spg and 2.3 3pg on 40.2% shooting over 22 playoff games.

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