The Los Angeles Lakers fell in their season opening contest [against the Golden State Warriors](https://lakeshowlife.com/los-angeles-lakers-luka-doncic-took-one-game-learn-painful-lesson-golden-state-warriors-lebron-james-austin-reaves) at home on Tuesday evening. It was the way the loss occurred that served to confirm one of the biggest fears of Lakers fans: that this team is going to continue to need better two-way wing production.
Heading into training camp, there was certainly the presumption from a lot of people within the Lakers fan base that this team was going to be thin on bench production, as well as lacking consistent two-way production from wing players. There were those that were more optimistic on this issue, but even those people couldn't have come away from Tuesday's game feeling great.
Just take a look at Rui Hachimura and Jake LaRavia, for example. These are two guys that the Lakers are realistically going to need to contribute a good bit on offense over the course of this season. In this game, the two players combined for just 14 points on 10 combined shot attempts. Hachimura played a grand total of 35 minutes, but only got up six shots by the time the final buzzer sounded.
The Lakers still need more wing production
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This is not a situation you're going to want to repeatedly find yourself in if you're the Lakers. Unfortunately, we don't have the ability to say this is a new issue in Los Angeles. In recent years, this team has repeatedly found itself heading into the season seemingly without an overabundance of wing contributors, particularly off the bench. Those that were a bit skeptical of how deep the Lakers' rotation really was heading into this season have to be feeling vindicated right about now.
This of course leads us into the conversation of whether the Lakers should be looking to make upgrades sooner rather than later. If you find yourself in a position where you don't believe the guys who are currently in your locker room can [help hold up the offense](https://lakeshowlife.com/lakers-brutal-marcus-smart-lesson-they-shouldve-seen-coming) when the starters are off the floor, you of course have to start thinking about looking at making trades. That's not a great place to be on opening night, and yet here we are.
No matter what the best path forward here is, it's clear that this is far from a desirable outcome for LA. Probably one of their biggest fears was that their depth was still lacking, and this opening night loss did nothing at all to quell those concerns.