I'll believe it when I see it in a game. He's going to have to play well enough to get time in front of a former #1 draft pick in Bogut as a backup, and one of the top centers in Brook Lopez. If he can't, hopefully he makes the most of having them around as mentors to work on his body and improve his overall game.
So there you go. Scoreboard. I said he looked not like I thought he should look by now in that pool picture about 2 months ago. He clearly was coasting some and not working as hard as he should have. It's apparent to everybody in SL and a fire gets lit due to his embarrassment. Look at him now just since Summer League. That's what I expected. I was also thinking the last few days that he's been unbelievably fortunate to have Larry Nance Jr. as his closest friend and someone going through the same kind of pressure and competition for his own career here ..... to talk to and get his I'm sure excellent advice and motivation in feedback.
Dude's got stumps for legs. But for real though, he looks a lot more muscular than he did in SL. Reminds me of when Bynum went from high school baby fat, to beast after a couple off seasons. Kid probably thought since he got minutes last year, he'd have it easy, took it easy once season ended, and came back worse. Having Lopez and Bogut to make him compete even harder for minutes, it'll be good for him.
No one is giving up on Zubac. Unfortunately I don't see how he's going to be able to be a starting center with a track team offense. Look what happened to Bogut in 3 years over there. His body told him eff you. I'm done. The guy had to go.
I haven't had a chance to fully listen to the podcast yet. I've got a lot of questions about Zu and his role moving forward too though.
They didn't trade (release?) him because he wasn't playing well. What are you talking about? It was about money and being able to do what they needed to clear salary for Durant. He was still producing well in his 20 minutes a game needed for big man play his last year there in the offense that is what our offense is going to be.
Back to Zu. He's fortunate again now beginning camp that he will be getting all kinds of opportunity to win back the staff on him since Lopez has to start slowly because of his back and he's probably ahead temporarily at the least of Bogut in game conditioning and skills due to his having to come back from the fracture. Maybe not but regardless they will be judicious in trying to get Bogut back to where he was. Zu is getting a second chance and he knows he needs to kick some a** physically and ksills wise out there now if he wants a better chance to remain a Laker long term.
I’m not sure we as a collective group of fans have “given up” on Zu, we were just very disappointed by his summer league showing. I think he’s way too young to give up on yet. If we’d given up on Bynum his first season it would have been a huge mistake.
I was, same u/n. And I was a one to support Bynum heavily over there. Bynum before his injuries, looked like he was headed to become the best center in the league. The cloud that always hung around him was potential, but two unfortunate injuries derailed that for him. I would agree in the sense that I believe he was never really focused on basketball 100%, but even Bynum at 60% was still effective. His injuries took away from his focus and he just never really got the playing exposure enough to get to where we expected him to be, and develop any sort of work ethic. He just fell off.
Agree. Just was referring to the epic "Bynum Will Never Be Special" thread that for a long period of time incredulously had many supporters in spite of what the many types of eye tests had told the rest of us.
