Full podcast. Long but worth a listen. Lot of good points on Kuzma and whether he can keep up his current level of play.
What will come and go is his jumper from outside. Nobody stays this hot forever, but he doesn't seem like the kind of kid who would take a hard day's shooting personally and let it affect him long term. It'll definitely be interesting to see how he reacts to adversity.
Agree. But he can impact the game with his speed down the court and he takes it to the hoop pretty often. I'm not worried about his offense. Defense and rebounding are the difference between him being a starter or not. But he's gonna get 20 minutes a night as it is. I'm hoping he can push that to 28 - 30.
Agreed completely. His "ability" to leak out and get easy baskets is just natural basketball playing. I genuinely don't understand why more guys aren't already doing that on our team. Pope and Randle should live on the run.
Neither are (yet) used to a point guard that will hit them with a pass? Kuzma and Ball built that chemistry in the Summer League.
Sure, but they've got the blueprint and the green light from coach. It's not terribly complicated. If I'm a Laker sitting at home watching Summer League, I'm looking at some of the things that make that team successful and working on that. Leaking out for easy baskets should be easy enough.
The amount of pressure being put on these young guys to carry the team or be the face of the team at 19 and 20yrs of age is a bit unfair, especially considering this franchise has been at the bottom of everything the past 5 years. DLO couldn’t handle it, I doubt BI can, and Lonzo will have a heck of a time trying to. I’ve already tempered my expectations for this team and fear we have another depressing year ahead. I’ll get excited when I feel confident in a coaching staff, (Luke is on the hot seat by year end if they can’t play defense), and the roster is mixed in with more experienced quality talent. Maybe Lopez, KCP and Deng close that experience gap, but we shall see.
It is something to build on. Of course, but we have keep in mind neither one of them played healthy minutes with Ball in the Summer League. Then again, it is also an adjustment for Ball who has to know how each plays and what their tendencies are. Or neither Pope or Randle are smart enough.
relevant to the discussion from a couple pages ago: http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...-including-kyle-kuzma-unexpected-hot-shooting pelton on kuzma's shooting, sample size, projections, etc.: so perhaps the sample size issue is less of a concern than i imagined?
Sure he may cool off from deep or have a bad game here and there as all shooters do. But if he is HOT again tonight against Kings on yet another floor over this pre-season schedule from 3pt range ...... look the hell out.
I love this dude. He has a great feel of the game. He's very decisive, attacks when its available, takes the open shot, makes the correct pass. Solid all around game.
Yeah, this. Just a smart ball player, gets in the right spots to get the ball wide open or on the move for a layup or dunk. Has a very fast catch and release, is showing a nice pump-fake game with a decent burst of speed from the face up. There’s almost nothing to complain about from him right now. Seems like he and Lopez are the only ones on this team that can make threes as well.
