Side Eye Sports argued on Oct. 19 that the Los Angeles Lakers were right to pass on Naz Reid, because Sandro Mamukelashvili already answered the Naz Reid question at roughly half the annual cost. That piece named the one thing that would undo it: “If Mamukelashvili struggles once real games start, the Lakers can revisit this at the deadline.”
Real games have started, and Sandro Mamukelashvili has not struggled. Through the Lakers’ first five games, all of them off the bench and all played by Oct. 28, he is averaging 10.2 points and 4.8 rebounds in 24.2 minutes a night on 51.4% shooting. By the test that piece set, Los Angeles was right. The test was the wrong one, because Naz Reid has outproduced him anyway: 17.0 points and 8.8 rebounds in 27.2 minutes across Charlotte’s first five.
The Gap Is Seven Points and Four Rebounds, Not a Failed Signing
Mamukelashvili’s start is no mistake. He has played every game, holds a real rotation share, and is the more accurate shooter of the two inside the arc — 51.4% from the field against Reid’s 43.0%. On a four-year, $52 million deal worth about $13 million a year, against roughly $25 million a year for Reid, that is the value the earlier piece promised.
Reid still gives Charlotte 6.8 more points and 4.0 more rebounds a night, as a starter in all five games, while Mamukelashvili has started none. Reid is the better shooter from three, too, 42.9% to 35.7%. The gap survives per minute, so it is not a volume illusion.
The Shooting Call Was Right. The Playmaking Call Was Not.
One half of the Oct. 19 case landed exactly. Of his 54.2% preseason three-point shooting it said, “That shooting will come down.” It came down to 35.7%.
The half it called more important did not land. It argued that what mattered more than the shooting was how JJ Redick was using him — “as a spacer and secondary handler, which gives Dončić and Reaves the offensive four they were looking for.” The spacing arrived. The passing did not: 3.4 assists a game in the preseason became 1.8. Redick calls him “an offensive connector,” per ClutchPoints. Five games in, he is the spacer, and the Lakers’ secondary creation still runs through Austin Reaves.
Charlotte Just Cracked Open the Door Side Eye Sports Called Shut
The Oct. 19 argument rested on Charlotte having no reason to sell cheap: the Hornets gave up an All-Star for Reid and had not told teams he was available. That is still the reporting. But on Oct. 28, Hornets coach Charles Lee sat Reid for the entire second half of a 97-89 loss to the Detroit Pistons, saying he “didn’t meet our standards in the first half,” per Yahoo Sports’ Ryan Young. Reid scored 7 points that night after averaging 19.5 through four.
One benching is not a trade request. But the whole case for passing was that Reid’s price would never fall, and a coach publicly sitting a starter paid nearly twice as much, in October, is how prices fall.
Reopen the File, for the Opposite Reason
The earlier verdict had the money right and the conclusion wrong. Mamukelashvili is a bargain, and he is not the answer to the question Los Angeles was asking — an offensive four who shoots is not a 17-and-9 starter, and nobody else on the roster produces at that line behind Walker Kessler.
So the Reid file should reopen before the deadline — not because Mamukelashvili failed, but because he is good enough to make Reid a luxury rather than a need, the only position from which a team can afford to wait for Charlotte to tire of him.
Sources: ESPN box scores and season statistics; Basketball-Reference; Yahoo Sports; ClutchPoints.
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