Lakers planning twin-tower lineups with Anthony Davis and Jaxson Hayes

The Lakers want to try Jaxson Hayes and Anthony Davis together in the starting lineup. Did they already forget what worked for them last year?

The Lakers remade their lineup at the trade deadline last February and the changes helped power an expectedly deep playoff run. They were able to retain most of those key pieces this offseason, as well as adding two potential impact rookies in Jalen Hood-Schifino and Max Lewis, and several other key free agents — Gabe Vincent, Taurean Prince, Cam Reddish and Jaxson Hayes.

Those additions to an already deep rotation give the Lakers a lot of possible lineups and we’ll undoubtedly see some interesting combinations early in the season as they try to figure out what gives them the best chance to stay healthy and push for another title when the playoffs start.

Among those possibilities is a twin-tower arrangement with Anthony Davis playing next to Jaxson Hayes — a long, athletic shot-blocker with an offensive game that is mostly limited to offensive rebounds, cuts and finishing around the rim. Per Jovan Buha, the Lakers are “confident” that Hayes can work in the starting lineup and “play a prominent role with Davis in two-big lineups.”

Will Anthony Davis and Jaxson Hayes work together for the Lakers?

Davis essentially played center exclusively last season, spending just 120 of his 1904 minutes with another interior big — 107 minutes with Wenyen Gabriel and 13 with Thomas Bryant. The previous season he played about a quarter of his minutes with either DeAndre Jordan or Dwight Howard. And that was a huge drop from his first two seasons with the Lakers when roughly 60 percent of his minutes came with at least one of Marc Gasol, Andre Drummond, JaVale McGee or Montrezl Harrell on the court.

Davis had one of the best seasons of his career and the transition to a solo big man surrounded by creators and shooters has buoyed his offensive game with the Lakers still functioning as a high-quality defense. But there’s also the concern that playing exclusively at center may be exacerbating his health problems and he’s played just 96 games across the last two seasons.

While it makes sense that the Lakers will experiment with these lineups this season it may be that the best of both worlds is continuing to play with a single big man but limiting Davis’ minutes overall and being more intentional about which big men they allow him to up against solo. On paper, a double-big lineup might be sacrificing the formula the Lakers stumbled into last season.