One of the great joys of a successful NBA team is falling for with the role players that fill out a roster. Anyone can appreciate a star player like Kobe Bryant, but it takes a certain dedication to get on board with a backup 2-guard’s ability to stop on a dime in transition or a center who can never hold on to a rebound, but always seems to tip them out to the right place.
There’s a special love affair between a team’s fans and the “others,” as Shaq always refers to them, and the Lakers have been blessed with some outstanding role players through the years.
17 titles don’t happen on the backs of superstars alone. That’s what made the 2021 offseason (and so many decisions of the current Lakers front office) disappointing, as the front office has prioritized star-hunting at the expense of any continuity in the role player ranks.
On this week’s episode of “I Love Basketball,” Raj and Sabreena chose to look back at teams that actually valued players 3-through-15 on their rosters and celebrate the great role players in Lakers lore. They each picked their favorite non-star at every position (no All-Stars were allowed) and shared what makes a role player so valuable and beloved.
They ended the show by discussing which current Lakers have the best chance of making this list at some point, and it proved to be a very challenging exercise.
You can listen to all that and more on our latest episode in the player embedded below, and to make sure you don’t miss a single one moving forward, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts.
And for a short-form recap pod, check out Lakers Lowdown, in which Anthony Irwin recaps the previous day’s news and gets you ready for the day ahead in LakerLand, every weekday morning on the Silver Screen & Roll Podcast feed.
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