Los Angeles Lakers' Season Now All About Finding Future Keepers
There is no longer any pretense about the Los Angeles Lakers shooting for the playoffs this season—it’s all about developing players who can be keepers for the ongoing rebuild.
The current starting lineup for the Purple and Gold doesn’t resemble anything a sane fan would have predicted back in the team’s recent championship era. But it is still a group of players that hold varying levels of potential for the future.
The eldest member of this merry band of misfits is shooting guard Wayne Ellington—a 27-year-old journeyman who is now with his fifth NBA team in six seasons. The NCAA Final Four Most Outstanding Player for North Carolina in 2009, Ellington is shooting 38 percent from beyond the arc and 44 percent overall.
During a loss to the Denver Nuggets Tuesday, Ellington hit his first five shots in a row, and wound up with 18 points for the night.
Filling out the starting five are Jordan Clarkson, 22, Ryan Kelly, 23, Tarik Black, 23, and Robert Sacre, 25.
Only one member of the lineup was drafted in the first round—Ellington, who was selected No. 28 by the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2009.
Sacre was the Lakers’ dead last pick in 2012, Kelly was nabbed at No. 48 in 2013, rookie Clarkson was selected No. 46 in 2014 after the pick was purchased from the Washington Wizards and fellow rookie Black wasn’t drafted at all, having wound up with the Lakers after the Houston Rockets waived him.
Yet here they are, mixing it up against the best the league can throw at them—usually losing, yet putting up a fight in doing so.
The Lakers also have a young lottery pick on the roster, but he’s not playing—Julius Randle broke his leg in his NBA debut, breaking the hearts of Lakers fans everywhere, and he was subsequently ruled out for the season. The Kentucky product also subsequently had right foot surgery to correct a longstanding issue.
The No. 7 draft pick is making good progress on his rehab, however, and he should be ready to roll by the time training camp rolls around again.
It has been a strange ride for the Lakers organization over the past four years—decreasing returns, a mind-numbing number of injuries and a seemingly never-ending parade of head coaches.
Phil Jackson departed at the end of the 2010-11 season and was followed by Mike Brown, Mike D’Antoni and now, Byron Scott. And each of the last three coaches has lost more games than his predecessor.
Writing for Lakers.com, Joey Ramirez observed that the current Lakers coach is committed to challenging a very young crew.
“Our guys are getting baptized by fire,” Scott said. “They’ll learn. They’ll just keep working at it. But I don’t use that youth as an excuse.”
The youth movement doesn’t stop with those currently inhabiting the first rotation. Ed Davis, 25, is in his fifth season, as is Jeremy Lin, 26. Even Jordan Hill—currently sidelined with a hip flexor—isn’t exactly a graybeard at 27.
But not all of the next-gen Lakers are created equal in terms of their current learning curve and future potential. As Ramirez writes:
"Clarkson, in particular, has been thrown headfirst into the furnace. Since joining the starting lineup eight games ago, the rookie has faced a gauntlet of opposing point guards—including Tony Parker, John Wall, Derrick Rose and Kyrie Irving—who have a combined 14 All-Star appearances between them.
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The 6’5” speedster often rushes into his sets with reckless abandon, looking to make good things happen in a hurry. As for any conventional wisdom about letting the game slow down and come to him, that doesn’t seem to be the message he’s receiving.
After practice Monday, the youngster responded to questions about Scott’s advice, per Lakers.com video: “A lot of it has just been pace, getting us into stuff. Getting the ball up the court and staying aggressive...y’know, just keeping the foot on the pedal, just having that killer.”
The lead-foot mentality seems to be paying off and it may simply be a matter of Scott allowing the 6’5” guard to play and develop his own strengths.
Lin’s future seems hazier. The point guard arrived in Los Angeles via a trade with the Houston Rockets last summer amid anticipation of a major role. But his game has lacked consistency, he's struggled to adapt and he’ll be a free agent at the end of the season. After a recent disappointing game against the New York Knicks—his team from the “Linsanity” era—Scott questioned any potential return to Lin’s glory days.
“A lot of people expect him to play at that level again,” said Scott, per Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News. “That might not be realistic.”
At this point, the Lakers seem more dedicated to molding relatively raw players who are hungry for minutes and willing to buy into Scott’s old school philosophy.
As general manager Mitch Kupchak recently said, per Lakers.com video: “We want Byron to establish and maintain a culture that he’s comfortable with, and the players have to adhere to that culture.”
This means finding disciples who are willing to play hard on both ends of the floor, as well as those who are not overly sensitive to having their minutes given or taken away.
One of the prospects that the Lakers are intrigued with is Kelly, who received solid minutes as a rookie stretch 4 in D’Antoni’s system. The former Duke NCAA champion missed the early part of this season with hamstring issues, and Scott has been trying to play catch-up by finding creative test situations for him.
That has meant playing Kelly out of position at the small forward slot. It’s hard to envision the reedy 6’11” sophomore as inhabiting that role on a more permanent basis—he’s not athletic, and he simply doesn’t have an abundance of defensive skills.
But, the hope for Kelly is to regain the confidence he displayed last season and develop into a useful role player who can use his basketball IQ to identify exploitable size mismatches while serving as a floor-stretching big.
Black is the least tested of the group. The rookie showed energy and hustle as a backup center before missing several games with a sprained ankle. Most recently, he has been the starting power forward in place of the injured Hill. In those four starts he has averaged 4.5 points and 5.2 boards in 20.7 minutes per game.
Another X-factor is Davis—a hard-working role player who grabbed 20 rebounds Feb. 4 while coming off the bench in a loss to the Milwaukee Bucks. The 6’10” rim protector will opt out of his $1.1 million player’s option at the end of the season, according to Medina, but it's a financial decision rather than any unhappiness with his role in Los Angeles.
“This is definitely my first option,” said Davis, who previously played for the Toronto Raptors and Memphis Grizzlies. “They’re a team that gave me a look last summer when not too many teams were calling. This is definitely where I want to be at. Hopefully I can stay here for the rest of my career.”
And then there’s the question of Hill, who is having a career year as a starter, averaging 12.3 points and eight boards in an economical 28 minutes per game. But the Lakers hold a $9 million option on the energetic big man, and that is money that could also be used to chase elite free agents.
The Lakers currently have the fourth-worst record in the league and are on track—perhaps—to hold onto their top-five protected draft pick for 2015.
This is a team that needs to draft well and attract some top free-agent talent.
But they also need to make the most of what they have now, and that means finding their future keepers. The Lakers have failed to develop cheap, young talent for several years, and the failure is beginning to manifest itself on a mostly-barren roster.
Development for the future is why Lakers fans are watching this team right now. With just 13 wins and more than 50 games into the season, there's no reason to hold the youth brigade back.
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