By Trading For Rui Hachimura, the Lakers Finally Have an NBA Player

On Tuesday night, the Los Angeles Lakers traveled to Madison Square Garden and beat the New York Knicks 129-123 in overtime. Most sites would take this opportunity to write about LeBron James recording his first triple-double of the season or LeBron James passing Steve Nash for 4th in all-time career assists.

But not I.

Let’s talk about Rui Hachimura. Here’s what he did to the Knicks:

40 minutes
19 points
9 rebounds
1 block
8-for-12 shooting (66%)
2-for-4 from 3

Nothing particularly superstar-esque from Hachimura. Rui isn’t the third member of the Lakers Big 3 next to LeBron and Anthony Davis. But for the first time all season, it looks like the Lakers finally have a legit NBA player on their roster.

Rob Pelinka and the Lakers front office thought it would be a great idea to run out a roster consisting of LeBron, AD, a shitload of unproven young players and a guy who wears a Russell Westbrook jersey.

So it never made sense to me why Lakers fans were so quick to dismiss the January 23rd trade for Rui Hachimura in exchange for Kendrick Nunn. Prior to his arrival, the Lakers big men were Thomas Bryant and Wenyen Gabriel. That’s who the Lakers were trying to drag to the playoffs. Wenyen fucking Gabriel.

Rui was the conference player of the year in his final college season at Gonzaga. He was the no. 9 overall pick for the Wizards in 2019. He’s won medals playing for the Japanese national team. The ceiling of what he’s capable of doing on a basketball floor is astronomically higher than Thomas Bryant.

The Lakers have a guy who can defend the paint with AD. He can score from all 3 levels. And he knows how to play professional basketball which I’m still not sure I can say is true about Patrick Beverley.

Plus, Rui Hachimura is the perfect type of corny to become loved by Lakers fans. He changed his number to 28 to honor Kobe Bryant and his daughter. What a cute little move to guarantee an arena full of Kobe stans are always supporting you.

Los Angeles is currently 13th in the West and 4 games below .500. Rui is the first step but they have a lot more work to do if they want to maybe reach the 11th seed or something.

What’s next for the Lakers after the Rui Hachimura deal?

The Lakers can’t have a crunch-time lineup that has Russell Westbrook on the floor. No matter the other nine players on the floor, Russell Westbrook is always the worst decision-maker. LA desperately needs a playmaking guard to fill that role.

Terry Rozier led the way for the @hornets with 28 PTS, 5 REB and 4 STL in their win tonight 👏 pic.twitter.com/0yTHKW1ebi

— NBA (@NBA) January 27, 2023

Terry Rozier would be perfect next to LeBron and AD. He’s averaging 21.7 points and 5.4 assists this season. Charlotte stinks and should be looking to unload some contracts and focus back on the rebuild.

Put Terry Rozier AND Rui Hachimura on this team and suddenly the Lakers would look like a real NBA team every night. Weird how that works.