{"id":559505,"date":"2026-01-25T08:00:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T08:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/559505\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T08:00:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T08:00:18","slug":"rui-hachimura-looks-set-to-remain-in-his-role-off-bench","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/559505\/","title":{"rendered":"Rui Hachimura looks set to remain in his role off bench"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">While there is still much the Lakers have to figure out with their roster and lineup, it does appear they\u2019ve found a solution to some of their bench scoring woes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Upon his return from injury, Rui Hachimura came off the bench as he was playing under a minutes restriction. However, as many thought would be the case, it looks like Rui will remain in that role moving forward.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Now, that phrasing does leave open the possibility that Rui re-enters the lineup once Austin returns, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.silverscreenandroll.com\/lakers-injury-report\/106127\/austin-reaves-lakers-injury-report-calf-strain\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">which will be soon<\/a>, but it would seem like an odd choice to go back to that lineup, which was not doing well, after Reaves returns.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">It would also come at a time when Rui seems to have embraced his role off the bench and is finding comfort in it. After showing some flashes of returning to his old self, he broke out in a big way in Dallas, scoring 17 points with some huge fourth-quarter shots.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Now that he\u2019s in a groove, moving him back into the starting lineup feels like it\u2019d be an unnecessary risk and especially so for a lineup that wasn\u2019t working.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Keeping Rui on the bench also helps the Lakers have some offense among the reserves. LA currently ranks last in the league in points per game from reserves and it\u2019s not particularly close, either.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Rui won\u2019t fix that by himself, but he will improve it. As I said, the Lakers have a lot of problems and they\u2019ll have one more if they move Rui back into the starting lineup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While there is still much the Lakers have to figure out with their roster and lineup, it does&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3790],"tags":[7,4034,1698,300,771,4044,251,150,4033,4043,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-559505","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-lakers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-la","10":"tag-la-lakers","11":"tag-lakers","12":"tag-lakers-news","13":"tag-lalakers","14":"tag-los-angeles","15":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","16":"tag-losangeles","17":"tag-losangeleslakers","18":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}