No matter what the win-loss record says, under coach Darvin Ham, the Lakers have an identity of playing especially hard this season no matter what.
So near the end of the recent loss against the Grizzlies in their first game played since LeBron James was sidelined due to a foot injury, it wasn’t at all surprising to see Lakers big man Anthony Davis exchange words with guard Dennis Schröder.
During an animated moment on the sidelines, the two had a heated back-and-forth that may have caught the attention and interest of some fans around the league.
Maybe Davis was just upset after getting dunked on by Jaren Jackson Jr., but it didn’t seem like a pleasant conversation:
Dennis Schroder and Anthony Davis having a long convo on the bench 👀pic.twitter.com/ClZIKXBpXe
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) March 1, 2023
More likely than not, however, the two were discussing what happened during a fourth-quarter possession when Davis called for the ball near the elbow and Schröder turned it over.
Memphis was able to turn the steal into an easy transition opportunity for an easy alley-oop highlight finish to Ja Morant:
Desmond Bane to Ja ‼️
Grizzlies lead 118-109 late on TNT pic.twitter.com/i3x2G4MOtb
— NBA (@NBA) March 1, 2023
The turnover was costly for the Lakers who finished with 26 while the Grizzlies only had 6. But just as concerning was the lack of effort from Schroder to get back on defense.
If you missed it while watching the video above, here is how it looked in slow motion:
Schröder was clearly frustrated but he had awful body language and as the NBA on TNT crew said, he simply stood there like an orange traffic cone. It was, without a doubt, awful optics.
This wasn’t the first time we have learned about Davis’ frustration with Schröder.
According to Eric Pincus, the big man was also upset with him during the guard’s first tenure with the team in 2020-21 (via Bleacher Report):
“Per an NBA source familiar with some of the Lakers’ struggles through the 2020-21 campaign, Davis felt some frustration that he wasn’t getting the kind of looks in the post with Dennis Schroder running the point compared to those he received with Rondo a year earlier.”
Using data from PBPStats and NBA.com, we were able to research if this trend has gotten any better or worse now that Schröder is on his second stint with Los Angeles.
| YEAR | PASSER | AST/36 | PASS/36 |
| 19-20 | LeBron | 4.6 | 24.2 |
| 19-20 | Rondo | 4.3 | 27.9 |
| 22-23 | Westbrook | 4.3 | 17.8 |
| 21-22 | Westbrook | 3.5 | 22.9 |
| 20-21 | LeBron | 3.2 | 20.6 |
| 22-23 | LeBron | 3.1 | 15.5 |
| 20-21 | Schröder | 2.1 | 17.3 |
| 22-23 | Schröder | 2.1 | 15.7 |
| 21-22 | LeBron | 1.9 | 18.3 |
While there are still occasionally exciting plays between the two, the results in the numbers were not encouraging.
The data, however, tells us that Schroder is not assisting Davis with any increased frequency and he is actually passing the ball to the big man less often than he did during their first experiment as teammates.
