Real Reason Lakers Prefer Taurean Prince To Rui Hachimura

The Los Angeles Lakers made it all the way to the Western Conference Finals last year thanks to the stellar play of NBA Trade Deadline acquisition, Rui Hachimura.

When L.A. rewarded Hachimura for his quality play with a three-year, $51 million contract – the expectation was that he would play a big role in the franchise’s future.

Unfortunately, as soon as the 2023-24 NBA season commenced, Hachimura began taking a back seat to offseason acquisition Taurean Prince.

This week, a report surfaced that explained why this occurred.

“Once Hachimura arrived in training camp, he didn’t embrace the role-player duties the coaching staff wanted from him — being fully engaged defensively, Boxing out hard, making the extra pass,” Jovan Buha of The Athletic reported.

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“Prince, on the other hand, earned the trust of the coaching staff with his professionalism and consistency.”

Because of that, Prince was the one to earn the starting job.

“The decision to start Prince was far from a unanimous one inside the organization,” Buha continued.

“The coaching staff believed Hachimura’s score-first mentality, which had not evolved enough in training camp in their eyes, made him a better fit off the bench. Prince, meanwhile, profiled as the low-usage, 3-and-D player the starting lineup needed to space the floor and slot onto elite wing scorers.”

The Lakers have struggled for much of this year, and one of the questions nobody could figure out an answer to was why they had deviated so much from late last season.

After all, there was a group on this roster that guided them all the way to the Western Conference Finals. Why not just give that group more minutes?

Now we know.

Will the Lakers be able to make a playoff run this year akin to the one they made last season? One way or another, an answer will present itself soon enough.

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Anthony Amador

A graduate from the University of Texas, Anthony Amador has been credentialed to cover the Houston Texans, Dallas Cowboys, San Antonio Spurs, Dallas Mavericks and high school games all over the Lone Star State. Currently, his primary beats are the NBA, MLB, NFL and UFC.