Rui Hachimura Discussion: Huge Buckets

He used to cuss out Rob, and now he doesn't?

Spoiler

He just does it in Japanese.

 

i wonder if this is some coded discussion of friction bc rui's a handy protege, and handy seems to have left on bad terms?

 

It was pretty apparent that Rui was frustrated with how Ham used him in 2024. Maybe he was vocal about it and directed some of the frustration toward the front office.

 

He didn't unfortunately do well from the bench.

He averaged 8.6pts, 2.5rebs and 0.6ast on the 27 games he came off the bench playing 23 minutes.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/hachiru01/splits/2026

I don't think we can pay 20 million for him to have that role

 

I agree but there's also the idea of paying for someone who you can develop or can develop into a better player.

Rui is what he is at this point. I hate to say it but do you see him getting better? I don't.

You could use that roster spot to develop a younger player who hasn't reached his ceiling whether it's being a shooter, defender, rebounder, etc.,

You can pencil Rui in for 14/4 on good shooting efficiency. But can he do something else to help the team?

 

Defense defense defense better fit fit fit .... you have to put points on the board from DEEP in the modern NBA. Something the Lakers have struggled finding guys to do since forever with how many have come in and not been able to do it. So Rui .... meh.... not that important we can just develop someone else into this perfect 2-way player that he is not. And hope they can shoot in the high 30's. Man you don't know what you got till it's gone with the 43% from deep all season and then scaled up to freaking 55% or whatever in the playoffs against 2 of the top defensive teams, and proven every year in the playoffs.

 

I am convinced that there will always be a group of fans who aren’t ever satisfied with any given Lakers squad- even a Championship One.

 

Rui was better defensively last season rather than the one just finished. But I thought in the post season both years he really dialed up his defense.

I do think that he can still improve defensively with his consistency, I also think the coaching staff can get more out of him offensively off the bench. If he is a 12-15 pt scorer that can scale up when Lebron is out, that to me is valuable.

Like I said, if you resign him to 16, Kennard to 9, Hayes to 4.5, Smart to 10 (part of the MLE) and use Adou at 2.1, you’ve got your bench sorted for 40 million? That’s an effective use of resources.

 

RUI MADE over 18 mil last year so why would he take a cut but we will see. he will be29 so 3 or four year with minimal raises or cuts to ease into bench warming state with single digits amd sinle year contracts

 

I took it as him not only (finally) accepting the bench role but thriving in it. At least according to reports, that wasn't something he was cool with prior to the pivot this season.

 

We need to stop the Rui thrived as a bench player narrative. He wasn't good, see above

 

Will Lakers Re-Sign Rui Hachimura? It's More Complicated Than You Think

 

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I really like his fit with SA. That one seems like a no brainer.

 

Rui fits on so many teams. Spurs, OKC, Detroit… but I think Minnesota would be a great fit to hide his issues, McDaniels at the 3 and Gobert at the 5 really fix all the problems Rui has defensively.

I’ve accepted he is most likely gone and for the MLE.

I hold out small hope we can S&T him somewhere to give him a bit more money and bring something back to us. But our FO hasn’t shown a propensity to max out every asset.

 

Sandro Mamukelashvili is better cheaper option than Rui

 

Based on what exactly? Sandro is a good shooter but Rui is better. Sandro plays the PF on defence while Rui doesn't because Luka or Lebron cover that guy - so Sandro will look even worse defensively here.

It perplexes me how much people dislike Rui. I imagine there will be a lot of disappointed people that we let Rui go in the years to come when he is slotted effectively as a PF for a team like the Spurs or Wolves.

 

Based on just about every metric including defense

 

i don't dislike him. i defended him when people wanted to ship him and eleventy first rounders for jerami grant. but he's flawed and doesn't fit here. especially if lebron's here. but really, even if he's not.

i fully accept that rui can and may look GREAT somewhere else. and that two of those teams are our direct competitors. but you can't take clippers mentality to this stuff. can't worry about whether we can screw san antonio.

if we commit long-term, big money to rui, we'll be looking to trade him again within the year, imo.

 

Yeah, but you're also on record saying you hope we make some of the RFA teams pay their guys, which is the same thing.