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The Los Angeles Lakers’ season is over, and it sure looked like they could have used a player like Mark Williams.
The Minnesota Timberwolves finished off the Lakers in a five-game first-round series on Wednesday, behind the best playoff game of center Rudy Gobert’s career. The four-time Defensive Player of the Year, long criticized for his postseason performances, went off for 27 points and 24 rebounds, with both numbers representing career highs in the playoffs.
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As the clock ticked away, Williams had a single emoji for the internet to dissect. There was really nothing more that needed to be said from the Charlotte Hornets center.
The Lakers famously set up a trade for Williams after their league-shaking Luka Dončić trade, with the plan clearly being to pair Dončić with a pick-and-roll partner like he had with the Dallas Mavericks.
However, Los Angeles ended up killing the trade, and the reasons why depend on whom you ask. Because the trade was struck down after the deadline, all the players involved returned to their original teams, with Williams staying on the Hornets and the Lakers retaining Dalton Knecht and Cam Reddish. Reddish was waived a month later, while Knecht was a DNP on Wednesday.
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With no Williams coming, the Lakers were left with a big man tandem of Jaxson Hayes and Alex Len, who simply didn’t look playof-contender-caliber down the stretch and during the first round. It got bad enough that head coach JJ Redick said before Game 5 he didn’t plan to play Hayes, but he did end up playing stretch forward Maxi Kleber, who was making his Lakers debut after recovering from a foot fracture and ended getting fourth-quarter minutes.
Mark Williams enjoyed watching the Lakers get eliminated, for obvious reasons. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
(Gina Ferazzi via Getty Images)
There are a lot of ways to describe how Game 5 went for Los Angeles, but it can be best summarized by them literally making Rudy Gobert look like prime Shaquille O’Neal:
Without Williams, Hayes or Len playing, and Kleber only getting five minutes from Kleber, no member of the Lakers’ starting lineup was taller than 6-foot-8. It’s no wonder the 7-foot-1 Gobert feasted to the tune of nine offensive rebounds and 12-of-15 shooting inside the paint.
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Williams has never been known as a defensive stopper, but there’s really not much to say when you kill a trade for a competent big man then get eliminated while clearly having a use for a competent big man.
In the Lakers’ defense, though, they can at least say they made the playoffs. Williams’ Hornets finished 19-63 on the season.
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