Last 3 seasons of Los Angeles Lakers will
not remembered with decent memories. The
process which started with Chris Paul trade veto continued with dissapointing
performance of Nash - Howard duo and reached to top with Kobe's injury. After
the 2010 championship Lakers had many ups&downs and after this injury they
found themselves in an unstoppable fall. The team transformed into a circus
leaded by people like Nick Young, Carlos Boozer, Jeremy Lin, Byron Scott. To
portray the hugeness of chaos; telling that they finished last in west
conference in last 2 seasons isn't enough. Too many unpleasant accident
happened on on-court and off-court.
While all those things were happening, draft picks quietly waited to convert to new players. Some authors claim that Mitch Kupchak made this situation even worse with his self-will to do stronger rebuilding. At first, I wasn't convinced with this idea. There were tons of moves that could be done, tons of steps that could be take. But time made them right and me wrong. Right now, Lakers have a young core which contains high-potential players, last year's most requested head-coach and large cap space. The bitter side of rebuilding has come to an end - at least we think so for now- and there are lots of reasons to look to future hopefully.
In this article, we are going to take a look at the players who are in this young core and participated in Summer League. It's a fact that performances and numbers in SL always can be illusive. We have to remember SL level is not comparable with real NBA's level. But meantime we have enough data to make to form a judgment.
Brandon Ingram
5 games - 12.2 ppg - 4.2 rpg - 1.8 apg - %44 FG - %25 3pt
Ingram is the most future-expected player on this core certainly. His ability to score and amazing wing span made it difficult to put him behind Simmons in mock drafts for experts. In fact, by the day of 23 June, the number of mock drafts which predict Ingram as top pick aren’t few. Also it was not a secret that Lakers wanted him more than Simmons and with Sixers' pick, they got what they wanted.
The game graphics showed by Ingram in
Duke upgraded the expectation level. And it's understandable. But we have to
ignore these expectations while we are analysing his SL performance. Ingram
couldn’t pass 25 points limit in any game and couldn’t control the game as well.
But he showed a little piece of talent which we will see very often in years to
come.
Let’s start with offense. Everybody knows that he has a great scoring
ability. He has an impressive first-step which can lower its opponent guard. He
is able to draw foul any time with his extraordinary length. And in addition to
all, he can use both hands. Long before he took a step to NBA, he faced with
many comprasions with Durant. But in my opinion, his stance on court is familiar
with Carmelo. Of course a weaker and more athletic Carmelo. His effective
performance on 1-on-1 is the reason why he reminded me Carmelo, probably.
Furthermore, his style on back turned plays reminded me Nowitzki. On offense,
the most positive note is that he knows the difference between taking the
control of game and ‘let the game come to you’ situation. To be honest, he is
more grown about that rather than D’Angelo Russell. Even when he couldn’t make
the shots that he supposed to make, he took the step back and didn’t strike an
attitude which might hurt his team. Just because Russell and rest of the team
couldn’t do their job on feeding him, he had to create his own shot.
Nevertheless, he didn’t do anything to lower the offensive tempo and made the
right cuts to right spots. Of course, we have to keep in mind that these were
the first games that Russell and Ingram played together. So there is no reason
not to improve their communication between them. Thus, it will be very vital
for Lakers.
Just because he is doing fine everything on penetration – pass – shoot
triangle, he is putting a lot of pressure on defense. But sometimes, when he
dived into 3-second area he made wrong calls. He was a little bit insistent and
worse than Simmons about finding the open guys around 3-point line. His
turnovers mostly caused by his headiness on isolation. When he got double
teamed, he had a hard time to make the
right decision. Of course, while we are talking about all these stuff, we have
to keep in mind that he is just 19 and under the guidance of right coach he can
improve his skills.
The thing that attracts my attention on defensive side is that he
frequently tried to balance his lack of strong body with his length. In this
way, he was able to make blocks and steals –like Anthony Davis- on positions which
found himself in as is disadvantage. Of course, on power subject, he is limited
because of his current body but unfortunately that’s not the only problem. His
neglect on defense caused many easy opponent points. At least, he is not bad as
Harden. He avodided body contact with his match-up and by doing that he gave
countless opportunities to his match-up on cut and offensive rebound.
D'Angelo Russell
4 games - 21.8 ppg - 4.0 apg - 6.2 rpg - %47 FG - %40 3pt
We have to separate D’Angelo’s career to two different periods: Before
and after Byron Scott. Scott and current status of team caused very bad rookie
season for a 2nd pick. D’Angelo has been effected very badly by
Kupchak’s evil plan. After the picture they have faced, followers of Lakers had
two main different ideas about him: claiming that he is a bust and needs to
have a second chance after Scott. Even though he has not played a single game
with Luke Walton, the positive effects of post-Scott period has started to come
the surface in SL. And put a smile on the followers’ –who supported the second
idea about him- face.
Above all, we witnessed that he was far beyond the level of SL. His 1
year of experience –don’t care if it’s good or bad- put him on a utterly
different level. We saw that he was becoming the leader of the team, and tried
this with talking with his teammates, not just with his own game. We saw that
he wants to become a player like CP3, not Rose, and understood that he couldn’t
do what he wanted to under Scott – Kobe duo, and gave him credit.
We know that D’Angelo is a pick&roll PG. He can read the floor well, be flexible whether the defence is doing double-team or switch. To improve his skills on that, team did a great job and tried many versions of p&r. On this point, there is a good note and a bad note. The good one; seems like after the bigs’ screen he is getting used to make the body contact with his match-up and force him to leave behind.
Like this:
The bad one; sometimes he is forcing the hoop too much even though he
has enough gap to pass or shoot. It’s one of the most important reasons of why
he has a %19.5 turnover rate. And the other reason is his passing judgment. He
sometimes doesn’t scared to try the hard way. On regular season, I predict that
he will be more conscious on these issues.
He controls the tempo very good on transition plays and early offense.
These two will be very important on the new Lakers system. When the team starts
the fast-break with Nance or Ingram, he doesn’t want the ball on his hands all
the time and make the right cuts to right spots which is a good detail. The
other topic that we have to focus on is post-up game. His post-up game is
getting better day by day. In SL games, he presented us a couple of nice
sequences on low-post. The number of PG’s who has a post-up weapon on his
offense is not many. In an interview he also said that he wants to dominate
this area.
On the defensive side, +’s and –‘s are pretty much balanced for D’Angelo.
Generally, we can say his on-ball defense is more efficient than his off-ball
defense. When he guards the off-ball player, he allows too many cuts and
offensive rebounds, like Ingram. But when he guards the ball-handler, he
adjusts the level of pressure very good.
Larry Nance Jr.
4 games - 9.0 ppg - 7.8 rpg - 2.8 spg - 1.8 bpg
Everyone failed on predicting Larry Nance’s future-projection. While he
was getting drafted with 27th pick last year, nobody thought that he
will be a great rotation player. After a solid rookie season, he carried over
his efficient performance to the SL. He became a player who can do a little bit
of everything. A player like every GM wants to see in his team. After the busts
like Ryan Kelly, it’s very meaningful to have a dependable 4-5 back-up.
Lakers’ offense options deepened with Ingram addition. That’s why
expectations mostly centered on defensive side for Nance and he has got a lot
of weapons on defense. His style on that side of game is very compulsive for
his match-up. He can reach out everywhere he wants, thanks to his athleticism.
For example, he did a great job on defending Simmons in Sixers game, in fact at
the end of the game his numbers on stats sheet were 4 blocks and 7 steals. He
met the expectations with his pick&roll defense and rim protection.
His game style is familiar with Faried and if he wants to step up to
next level, he needs to do one thing faultless on offense. That can be shooting
as he showed some signals on SL. He played with 5/9 on pick&pop based
mid-range shoots. He showed that he can make 3’s when he gets the opportunity.
He had these threats last year but needed to improve. It’s nice to see that
he’s making process, %66.7 true shooting is the quantitative evidence.
The other thing that makes him valuable on offense is his ability to
play pick&roll efficiently. He screens strongly and act cleverly on
direction and timing. We have to add that he can run the floor after getting
defensive rebound, like Draymond Green. Of course, he can’t read the game as
Draymond can, but with Walton’s system this skill of him will come into
question.
Ivica Zubac
5 games - 10.6 ppg - 7.2 rpg - 2.6 bpg - %64 FG
And let’s get to the Zubac who surprises everyone in SL, not just
Lakers. Saying that he is a steal before we look at his performance on regular
season will be completely wrong. But among the 2nd round picks of
this year’s draft, he is one of the biggest steal candidate. The injury which
he suffered last year caused him to fell down to 2nd round of 2016
draft. If it wouldn’t happen, there are rumours claiming that GM’s would have
picked him on 1st round. In fact, Brian Shaw said that they put
Zubac to 16th place on their draft board.
So, what was the reason of hearing his name so much, all summer long?
Let’s start with numbers. He played with 2.6 blocks per game which made him 2nd
in SL. Also his average on points per possession was 1.2 and that number made
him the leader of this stat among this year’s 2nd rounders. All
those are impressive but they are not enough to describe what Zubac can/can’t
do.
First of all, when he is on the floor he becomes the most important
actor in 3-second area. Especially; when he founds his rhythm, he can make
3-second area a ‘no fly zone’ or can score 3 positions in a row with his
efficient low-post game. Other than these, he locates very well on floor. He
gets easy bucket chances with his right cuts in transition and his right
location in 3-second area ables him to improve his block stats. He is trying to
balance his slow footwork with smart steps. He has a special motivation on
offensive rebounds obviously, %40 of his rebounds were offensive.
With showing all these attributes, Zubac made himself more playing time.
But as a result of that, we saw his defects more during this time. Although he
is a great threat on 3-second area with his length advantage, in some sequences
he didn’t use this advantage and lifted down his arms too much and that caused
foul-problem. The other issue of his game is his weakness of his left hand.
This weakness makes him predictable while he was at the low-post and at the
mean time limits his efficiency on defense. His slow footwork causes problems
on transition and against centers who have 3 point threat. He needs to improve
efficiency on pick&roll, when he puts a screen, he can’t adjust the dosage
of power and sometimes that causes offensive foul. When he rolls, he can’t
accord with ball-handler. If he wants to add another weapon to his hook shot,
he needs to work on his mid-range shoot. He is at the particular level on that
issue but extremely unstable and his range is very limited.
When we consider Mozgov addition and the possibility of other players’
getting playing time on 5, his chance of getting the jersey on regular season
is uncertain. His playing time will depend on whether Walton will give Nance
and Randle minutes on 5 or not. I would like to give a chance to him to see if
he can repeats his performance in SL.
(There might be multiple vocabulary/grammar mistakes in the text. Sorry for that already.)
