It doesn’t depend on them who will play the first round in the new season, but on James’ attitude.
Recently, Babamura and Vanderbilt have been polishing their skills with Handy, the chief assistant coach of the Lakers. This is a smart choice. They are both competitive and need to be improved.
Some people think that the new season may replace Vanderbilt as a starter, on the grounds that the contract is bigger, and at the same time, he played better against the Nuggets in the playoffs last season, and his playing time was the main level.
Vanderbilt has many supporters, and he is still practicing 3 points and is expected to continue to start.
Of course, if Bacomura developed Vanderbilt’s defensive ability, or Vanderbilt developed Bacomura’s offensive ability, then whoever developed first would start, but it would still keep up with last season.
In fact, it doesn’t depend on them, it depends entirely on James’ attitude on the defensive end. Ham commented after the season. He understood James’ staying in the regular season and was very satisfied with James’ performance in the playoffs, but he also pointed out that he criticized James’ attitude in the middle of the season.
James didn’t defend at all for a long time in the regular season, and many games in a row were zero fouls. Now the Lakers are guarding the inside line and James doesn’t do the work of assisting in the defense sweep, so he must have teammates to help him finish the work.
So if James is willing to show the same defensive attitude in the regular season as in the playoffs, then the first one is Ba Cunjian. But if James paddles in the regular season like last season, Vanderbilt will be the only starter.