The Los Angeles Lakers finished the regular season under first-year head coach JJ Redick with 50 wins, which was good enough for the Purple and Gold to win the Pacific Division and secure the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference Playoffs.
While the Lakers will ultimately go as far as LeBron James and Luka Doncic can lead them, this particular playoff run will have some major ramifications in terms of which players around those two are deemed to be intricate pieces to the puzzle and which are deemed expendable as Los Angeles looks to lay claim to yet another Larry O'Brien Trophy.
These decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis once this team's playoff run is over. However, one player in particular could be facing a make it or break it postseason for the Lakers a bit more than others.
Lakers Forward Jarred Vanderbilt's Future in L.A. Hinges on 2025 Playoffs
After being considered a can't-miss prospect by many as a prep player, injuries have been a routine issue for Vanderbilt since his lone season with the Kentucky Wildcats. To this day, it remains one of the key reasons why the forward has been so in and out of the lineup since arriving in Los Angeles, as he has only appeared in 65 of a possible 164 games throughout the last two seasons.
Vanderbilt has two years remaining on his current contract and holds a player option for the 2027-28 campaign, so it isn't like the Lakers could simply walk away from his deal if the big man doesn't live up to expectations during the postseason. That being said, Los Angeles' front office has come up with extremely creative ways to make adjustments to their roster before, and they can very well do it again if deemed necessary.
What is troubling for Vanderbilt and the Lakers is that his overall production from year to year, even when Vanderbilt is healthy enough to take the floor, has dropped since he joined the Lakers. One-off injuries or extended slumps happen to the best players in sports, but it is negative trends like we are seeing out of Vanderbilt that the front office is forced to identify all of its options.
Any team with LeBron James on it operates in "win now" mode. This has been the case for the vast majority of his career. With James now on the wrong side of 40 years old, taking advantage of the window he has left as one of the most dominant forces the game has to offer is the primary concern of Rob Pelinka and the front office.
If Vanderbilt cannot prove this summer that he is capable of making a positive impact on winning during that window, his time in Los Angeles will likely come to an end long before his current contract does.