Can Gabe Vincent fight to stay in the Lakers rotation?

Welcome to our Lakers Season Preview Series! For the next several weeks, we’ll be writing columns every weekday, breaking down the biggest questions we have about every player the Lakers added this offseason. Today, we look at Gabe Vincent.

The playoffs reveal a lot about a team, both good and bad.

Last spring, when the rubber met the road, head coach JJ Redick had so little trust in his bench that he kept the same five on the floor for an entire second half, leaving his reserves rooted to the bench. Much of that focus of that decision was on the center position and the Lakers using a small ball look in that second half of Game 4.

However, Gabe Vincent was also one of the players who did not see playing time in that contest. And while he came back in Game 5, it felt like crossing a bridge that’s hard to come back from. After a relatively good season from Vincent, he still wasn’t called upon when it mattered most.

Can that trust be rebuilt between Vincent and Redick? Or is this just a waiting game until a trade or free agency comes?

While last season certainly wasn’t “best-case scenario” for Gabe Vincent, it was a pretty good blueprint of what his best season would look like.

Vincent played a career-high 72 games, stepped in as a starter when needed and averaged 21 minutes per night. At times, he closed games and hit some big shots. He shot 40% from the field, just above his career average, and 35.3% from three, the second-best season from beyond the arc in his career.

Where do you go from there, then? He’s not going to get the shot or ball-handling diet he did in Miami, so his jumps will have to be in his efficiency. And it was already a better-than-average season last year in that regard.

His career-best 3-point shooting season saw him shoot 36.8%, an achievable number. That will be the biggest area of focus in a best-case scenario season.

Defensively, he’ll continue to fight as much as he can with his physical limitations as a small guard. He’s not going to become a quicker or shiftier guard at age 29. In the right matchups, he’s a useful defensive player. Continuing to find success in those games will be important — and still being an impactful player on the other end in the suboptimal matchups — will be key in a best-case scenario season.

After not being trusted in the playoffs last year, Vincent never finds his groove again. Already a streaky shooter, he struggles to find a rhythm early in the season and his minutes quickly go away.

Along with his 3-pointer not falling in his limited minutes, his defense slips as smaller guards become more of a target defensively.

With players on the roster capable of filling the role he held last season, it becomes hard to make an argument for Vincent to get minutes.

The conversations shift entirely away from what he can do on the court to what he can bring the team back in a trade, which there is already plenty of noise around right now. With the Lakers open to taking back long-term money, his expiring deal starts to look more valuable, especially when paired with other expiring deals on the roster.

Realistically, the Lakers signed Marcus Smart for the Gabe Vincent role. He’s a much better fit defensively, even if he is an even more streaky shooter offensively.

Add in the likes of Jake LaRavia, Adou Thiero and a healthy Jarred Vanderbilt — and perhaps even Dalton Knecht — and there’s a lot of players Vincent will have to beat out for him minutes this year.

The challenge for Vincent is differentiating himself from Smart. It’ll be hard to have two small guards in the rotation, even if they bring different things to the court. Short of injury, it feels like Vincent will be on the outside looking in of the rotation heading into the season and will have to do something to impress or take advantage of an opportunity made available through injury.

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