The “team-first” mentality with which Gabe Vincent has approached the NBA season has turned him into one of the leaders of the Los Angeles Lakers following the wave of injuries that affected the team’s stars and Vincent himself as well.
Ironically, Vincent’s first two seasons with the Lakers were complicated by injuries. After spending his first four NBA campaigns with the Miami Heat, the guard arrived in Los Angeles for the 2023-2024 season, but over his initial years he appeared in just 83 games and never fully established himself as a key contributor.
Now, injuries that sidelined LeBron James and Luka Doncic forced the Lakers to look for a new leader within the roster. That was the moment when Vincent’s fighting spirit came to the forefront, allowing him to emerge as the central figure and the on-court anchor in the absence of Los Angeles’ primary stars.
How has Vincent become a leader for the Lakers in 2025?
Gabe Vincent’s basketball journey might suggest to some that he was never destined to be a leader, but his story tells something very different. A native of Modesto, Vincent has never stopped betting on himself a mindset that has followed him to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Vincent went undrafted in the 2018 NBA Draft. He initially signed with the Sacramento Kings but did not make the final roster, instead spending two seasons with the Stockton Kings in the NBA G League. During that time, he built a strong reputation through consistency and resilience.
Miami Heat decided to take a chance on him on January 8, 2020, while he was finishing his final G League season. That year, Vincent earned the league’s Most Improved Player award, a recognition that underscored his steady growth and perseverance.
That same competitive mentality has stayed with him in Los Angeles and is highly valued by head coach JJ Redick. However, the absence of stars like James and Doncic has allowed Vincent to showcase that leadership more clearly than ever, stepping into a role he had never fully occupied before.
“It’s mostly just finding my voice. I’ve always had things to say, or felt a way about stuff,” Vincent said. “It’s finding the right way to get through to people and to express the way I feel or what I’m seeing to help the group just move forward in the best way possible.”
Vincent has played 14 games in 2025, starting six of them, averaging 21 minutes per game and posting 4.7 points per contest.
He is currently sidelined for at least one week due to what has been described as lower back soreness, but Redick is confident he will be ready to return soon. For the head coach, the way Vincent has embraced leadership will strengthen the team once the full roster is available, eliminating any potential ego-related issues.
“You give the ball space, run things with pace, put some trust in them and some responsibility in them to make the right reads, but allow talent to be talent,” Vincent said when discussing how he fits alongside star players.
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