The Lakers looked to be in pretty dire straights when it was announced Jaxson Hayes would be out moving forward after spraining his ankle during practice. Already short on centers, the Lakers were now down to just two-way centers to back up Anthony Davis.
However, after a somewhat rocky showing against the Spurs on Friday, Christian Koloko showed up in a big way on Saturday to help the Lakers to a win. In his best game of his brief Lakers career, Koloko did a bit of everything in his 11 minutes against the Pelicans, tallying six points, six rebounds along with an assist, steal and block.
After the game, head coach JJ Redick spoke about Koloko stepping up when the team needed him.
The adrenaline-spiking final moments of the ‘06 Maryland-Duke Championship need a deep rewind
It's April 4th, 2006. We’re in Boston for the 2006 NCAA final between a school with a powerhouse reputation that you might be surprised to hear has never won a championship, and a school you might not be surprised to hear has never won a championship. The first one’s Duke, and the latter is Maryland in case I’m being too opaque. Terps have the ball, down three, with 12 seconds left. To understand just how surprising it is that Maryland is this close to winning the title, and how annoying that must be for Duke, we gotta rewind.
“He was great for us,” Redick said. “I think, for him, just continuing to build confidence, not only as an individual but just confidence in playing with the group. That doesn’t happen overnight. It doesn’t happen in a week or two. He’s an early-season addition in some ways to our team.
“He was good tonight. We had him on the in-bounder on that last play when they ended up getting the turnover. Nice guy to have on the roster to put out there and he produced.”
For a number of reasons, getting production from Koloko is huge. In the short-term, it allows the Lakers to have a legitimate center on the court when Anthony Davis is resting in lieu of a LeBron James-Rui Hachimura frontcourt we saw at times in previous years.
Koloko isn’t just a fill-in, either. His length and athleticism let the team continue to play as they did with Hayes without having to change things up much. It’s as much of a plug-and-play fit as they could have hoped for.
While it’s just one game, if Koloko works out long-term, it could make it easier to part ways with one of Hayes or Christian Wood in a trade if Koloko proves to be a viable backup option. That requires multiple games with performances as he had on Saturday, but the Pelicans game was a step in the right direction.
