Los Angeles Lakers: Three things to watch for in preseason opener

3. How Alex Caruso and Avery Bradley perform

This is not a battle for a starting position, although Alex Caruso and Avery Bradley will impact how many minutes the other person gets as they are both guards. Instead of watching a battle, though, make sure you keep an eye out for how they both look tonight as they both could end up being bigger role players than people expect.

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I don’t have to explain to Laker fans why you should get excited about Caruso and Bradley. Most fans of other teams, though, don’t understand that Caruso has legitimate skills and that Bradley was much better in his short tenure with Memphis and that his play with the Los Angeles Clippers may have just been a bad stretch.

Caruso is someone that could end up getting a lot of playing time at the point guard position. He is not a point guard that needs the ball to succeed, which is important alongside LeBron James, and he is an above-average defender with size.

At his best, Bradley is one of the 15-best defenders in the NBA and is an off-ball scoring threat as well. He was a huge reason for the Boston Celtics’ success with Isaiah Thomas and looks to be in the best shape of his career.

If Vogel properly utilizes these two then they will be huge role-playing assets for the Lakers by the time the playoffs come around. We see it every year: having important role players off the bench is huge for a title-contending team.

Whether or not they succeed on Saturday will not determine their roles this season, as there is a lot of basketball to play. However, it will be a nice sneak peek on what we could see a lot of this season.