Talen Horton-Tucker Discussion: Growing Pains

He sucks and is very limited, but we do him no favors starting him alongside Westbrook and James with a big. He has NO jumper and has to become a body contortionist to ensure all lay-up attempts are with his right hand.

Start Monk in his place.

 

I like THT and he's so young that is easy to forget
The Lakers are making it so hard for him playing him next to Westbrook or with DAj/Dwight plus Westbrook.

If that't the plan better to try to make the Jeremi Grant move. that solves a lot of Laker issues: you get what Stanley Johnson gave you tonight and Ariza but a whole lot more offense

 

He's going to get moved.

 

Pretty young guy to give up on, but since you have 3 declining All Stars on the team, they have to be in win now mode.

Which makes the whole Caruso decision even worse. I don't think they give up on him. They already gave up too much in order to keep him.

 

My biggest gripe with THT is that I don’t see much improvement offensively from last season. Still can’t shoot from the perimeter and absolutely refuses to use his off hand around the rim, making his life more difficult than it has to be.

 

for robert covington. and we're going to regret it.

really feel a lou williams/zubac level bad trade coming.

 

He should NEVER be on the court with both of them. But we're at a place where each have to play 40 minutes to have a chance against teams. There's not enough PT for him left after that to justify half that salary on this team

 

Oh, absolutely.

I like THT.

I would rather do it for Grant.

Makes me feel a little better.

It's just a crap show right now.

 

grant wouldn't be a bad trade. not the home run some think it would be, but man...i just think we're going to trade THT for a vet retread who won't fulfill the promise.

like, i love thad young. on a buyout. but not for THT. just please not another mike muscala type move. and covington would be that.

 

I hope Rob wouldn't be dumb enough to do that.

But idk anymore.

I like Thad, too. Can play some 4/5 and give us some physicality.

 

Its hard to develop young players while contending. But we aren’t helping things either by starting him with Russ and Lebron. THT needs the ball to be effective and he can’t get quality usage with them. He should definitely be coming off the bench.

He’s one of our only trade chips so any moves needs to be a big win imo. Grant might be it. A Covington type move would be such a bad look, especially when you factor in we kept THT over Caruso (when we should have kept both). I’m not as confident as I used to be in Rob, I’m scared s***less he’s gonna pull a Magic-Muscala move

 

Exactly. Nobody will look good till we run an offense that moves players around.

 

Is he trying to tank his value to avoid a trade?

5 fouls in 21 minutes and that's really it. One of our hardship Joneses could've done that for 1/1000 of the price.

 

I thought he was fine outside the foul trouble. Had a couple of nice passes and give and goes with Monk and Lebron

 

I just think hes been put into a very tough situation. His best skills are underused on a team with Lebron and Westbrook. Plus he's so young.

I thought he was finding his way before Covid played two very good games as a complimentary guy. Have to be patient with him as this will make him a better player over the long term. He even finished with the left hand today. Remember he's like two years younger then Reaves!

 

Exactly. I didn't think he cost us any plays out there, so if I'm reaching for a positive, there's that. But that's not what anyone on the team, the coaching staff, or front office told us we were getting. They touted him as the 4th best/ important Laker. Collision outplayed him and he's been out of the league for a couple years. That can never happen. Ever.

I thought they were a year early going all in on THT being ready for the role. I'm not trying to hate on him. I like him. But I don't like him for the role he's not equipped for or ready for on this team. We don't have time to wait on him and at this point, his greatest contribution as a Laker will be as a trade chip.

 

THT has been below average this year. If we had an average starter’s contributions from him, we’d have won a handful more games.

So far his play just hasn’t been good enough.