Jake LaRavia Discussion: Lah-Rave-E-Ya!

I guess this is why I my gut feels like I'm being gaslighted thru the years it's switched from Vando to Jake (and to some extent Rui) as well. Even Max who I loved as a prospect I soured on and I'm still despite his box score metric, feeling pretty good about being ready to move on from him as his advanced metrics still look awful.

These are the positions where the Lakers are losing the battles. You need to flip these guys from warm bodies who show flashes to guy who can actually be productive. A simple heuristic that I'm slowly relying on more is: are these guys opposing worry about, decide to target either on offense or defense, and how much time will they devote to it. These dudes are guys opposing coaches for the most part would be happy to see, unfortunately and this is why my posts probably sound very grating.

You compare that to the 2020 roster and a completely different stack of quality on the roleplayers

 

Landry had the playoffs of a lifetime. I would be concerned he'd go back to irrelevancy.

 

yeah, i'm not buying shamet the defender, either, tbh. he's been a career-long negative on that end until this year, when he was basically a neutral.

the numbers say rui regressed defensively, but i don't fully trust them. my eyes and the numbers say rui's a negative on that end, though. i think he's perfectly fine guarding 4s and playing rover (though his lack of footspeed and anticipation is still a problem there), but that's already the spot that luka and lebron occupy (which is already a problem in itself).

all jake needs to do is re-discover the three ball, imo. he's shown the ability. he got a bit of the yips. if it persists, he's playing in spain after next year. if he gets back to upper 30s, he's got an nba role. albeit as a 9th man at best.

 

I don't like his hair

 

Rui needs to be in a team where his size and strength can be useful defensively. Spurs are an excellent fit and I imagine his advanced stats look fantastic (because stats doesn't matter how complex can't shake the other players you play with). Wemby protecting the interior with Castle, Harper and Vassell guarding 1-3 and Rui guarding big 3's and 4's would be elite defensively. Then you add Rui spotting up at 45% as the 4th or 5th offensive option and he'll be one of the premier role players in the league.

Jake can be an excellent role player, but he needs to get his shooting to 40%, then effectively he can be a 7th/8th player in a rotation or as a junkyard dog 5th starter. He has sneaky athleticism and can actually keep up with 1-4 pretty well. Without the shot and with the yips offensively, he can't be a top 10 player if you're serious about winning.

 

His 2025 shooting numbers look like a clear outlier. He was at 42% in 2025, his other three seasons are at or below 34%. If he can bump it up a little bit to like 36% I'll be fine, I don't need him to be a knock-down shooter. What I want is for him is to be more of a jack of all trades type that can pass, drive closeouts, get some offensive rebounds, etc. More of like a Josh Hart type offensive game. The problem was that the extreme shooting slump zapped his confidence, which affected his all-around game. He just kind of did nothing a lot of the time.

 

I expect him back. Then we'll have several here out of their minds mad like the several or MORE are about AR with his big contract.

Good times!!

 

Jake LaRavia is a cho*e.

It's true, oh it's damn true.

 

we are already likely losing Maxi. We can't lose more than one Euro in an offseason can we?

hahahahahahaa

 

jake laravia is from indiana, julio.

 

welp, Laravia sounded Your o Peein.

But the point was we can't dump multiple white guys in a row can we? hahahahaaha, except we do have replacements in the wing.

I actually liked his play and felt like he showed promise. But there was a WORLD of difference when he played with force and confidence vs when he did not. The coaching staff needs to figure out how to help him get and keep that feeling. If so, we could have a very useful rotation piece.

 

i really think it was as simple as his shot left him and he got in his head, which had downstream consequences for other aspects of his game. but he's really a 15mpg iq/energy guy, and he's paid as one. our problem was that we needed him to be more due to the lack of talent on the roster outside our top guys.