The Los Angeles Lakers made a very shrewd move when they acquired Rui Hachimura, and he made quite a positive impression on his arrival.
His role has somewhat diminished recently, however, and Hachimura didn’t even play against the Chicago Bulls on Sunday. Head coach Darvin Ham was asked about not playing him after the game.
“There’s not enough minutes for everyone,” Ham said. “Lonnie (Walker IV) is going through that the last several games. When you have a lot of good players, through no fault of their own, someone’s going to be left out of the rotation and tonight it was Rui… When you have a good team, a deep team, somebody’s gonna get the short end of the stick. It just happened to be Rui tonight.”
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While you can certainly understand that, at times, someone can get left out of the rotation, it is a surprise that it was Hachimura in this instance. The Lakers don’t have a lot of size on their roster, so not featuring him at all is quite strange. The Bulls had a lot of success against their smaller lineups, and Hachimura certainly could have helped.
The Lakers would see their three-game winning run come to an end here as they drop to 37-38, and it is a big blow to their hopes of finishing in the top six in the Western Conference. The return of LeBron James was the only positive to come out of this game, and he does think they can still be a top-six seed. Playing Hachimura will certainly help with that and it remains to be seen just how involved he is moving forward.
Rui Hachimura’s Priorities For His Contract In The Summer
Hachimura is set to be a restricted free agent in the summer, and he doesn’t seem all that interested in taking any sort of pay cut. It was reported that he will prioritize years and money in free agency, and if the Lakers don’t give him a good enough deal, he’d probably walk away.
If Ham continues to not feature him a lot, having played under 15 minutes in each of the two games prior to this, then he’d have another reason to leave. His somewhat limited role post the All-Star break means he is now averaging just 9.3 PPG to go with 3.3 RPG, and he certainly cannot be too happy about that. It would be a mistake if the Lakers do let him go, but they have made some poor decisions in terms of not retaining players in recent years.
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