Rui Hachimura gets brutally honest on playing with LeBron James, Anthony Davis
01/24/2025 11:12 PM
LOS ANGELES – Throughout the 2024-25 season, Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick has often spoke about building a team identity and raising the standard. In recent games, results were disappointing against the Los Angeles Clippers, but much smoother against the Boston Celtics. Both of those teams are among the best defensive teams in the NBA. For the Lakers to consistently compete against those type of teams, Rui Hachimura believes they need to do a better job playing off of their stars in LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
Following the Lakers' loss to the Clippers last week, Rui Hachimura spoke about watching film and seeing how the team can find ways to play better off the defensive attention drawn by both LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
"With Bron, he gets a lot of attention, he gets all the attention defensively. Literally, sometimes they're all watching him," Hachimura said. "I think that's the stuff, when they attract a lot of defense and attention, Bron and AD, we have to move more, but we can't kill the spacing. We got to get back and watch the film trying to see what the spacing looks like to fix that."
Rui Hachimura's 2024-25 season with Lakers
With the NBA trade deadline approaching, Hachimura is a name that's come up in possible trade rumors. He's a player that has value and can possibly be part of what makes a larger trade work. But it's not likely that he is traded this season, as per Dan Woike of the Los Angeles Times.
In terms of the consistency that Redick has spoken about throughout the season, Hachimura fits that description to a tee. He's been amongst the Lakers' most consistent players under Redick. He isn't a flashy player, but he does his job in terms of simply being consistent.
Hachimura has appeared in 37 games this season, at just about 32 minutes per game. He's been averaging 12.2 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.5 assists with splits of 48.7 percent shooting from the field, 41 percent shooting from the three-point line and 77.5 percent shooting from the free-throw line.
He's done well in terms of making strong cuts off the ball towards the basket, and James and Davis have often found him for easy scoring opportunities.
This is Hachimura's second full season with the team after being acquired in a trade with the Washington Wizards ahead of the 2023 NBA trade deadline. He played about three and half seasons for the Wizards after they selected him with the No. 9 overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft.
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