Lakers 2024-25 season player grades: Gabe Vincent

USA Today

2 days ago

Lakers 2024-25 season player grades: Gabe Vincent
Two summers ago, the Los Angeles Lakers signed guard Gabe Vincent just weeks after he had a strong postseason run with the Miami Heat when the Heat reached the NBA Finals. He had been one of the keys to the Heat unexpectedly making it that far, and he was seen as essentially a replacement for Dennis Schroder, a key member of a Lakers team that went to the Western Conference finals that same year and left in free agency.
Unfortunately, Vincent missed almost all of last season due to a knee ailment, and fans became pessimistic that he would ever play consistently, let alone contribute consistently. This season, he remained relatively healthy, but his results were a mixed bag.
Gabe Vincent's season stats
In 72 regular-season games, Vincent averaged 6.4 points in 21.2 minutes a game while shooting 40% from the field and 35.3% from 3-point range.
In the first round of the NBA playoffs, he averaged 2.8 points in 19.8 minutes a game and shot 35.7% from the field and 30.8% from 3-point range.
Overall analysis
It was envisioned that Vincent would play backup point guard and provide some defensive toughness, timely 3-point shooting and even some secondary or tertiary ball-handling and facilitating. Early in the season, he didn't get it done in any of those categories.
In October and November, he mustered just 2.8 points a game and shot an awful 31.3% overall and 20.9% from downtown. But in December, as the Lakers started to get their act together, Vincent got hot. That month, he made 44.4% of his 3-point attempts.
That was pretty much the story of his season. When he was hitting from the outside, he was a serviceable bench player for an L.A. team that lacked depth, especially in the backcourt. When he was throwing up bricks, he was a dead weight. The problem was that his shooting accuracy fluctuated wildly from month to month.
He went on another hot streak in March, but he was simply too inconsistent to make fans feel like he justified the $11 million his contract paid him this season. By the end of this season, it started to look like the promising stretch he had during the 2023 NBA Playoffs, when he put up 12.7 points a game and knocked down 37.8% of his 6.1 3-point tries a game, was more of a happy fluke than a sign of his real potential.
What's next for Vincent?
Vincent was signed to a three-year, $33 million contract in the summer of 2023, which means he's going into the final season of that deal. From the Lakers' point of view, that makes him useful as salary ballast in a potential trade for a center or a two-way wing, as another team could use his contract to trim its payroll next summer when that contract comes off the books.
However, given his shooting struggles, it is unlikely another team will see him as a serviceable player to trade for. If anything, he may be seen as someone who is on a bad contract.
Overall grade: C-minus