Why the Los Angeles Lakers Need to Play Larry Nance Jr. Now
LOS ANGELES — Four games into the most humbling start in their 68-year history as an NBA franchise, the Los Angeles Lakers are winless and scrambling for a life raft. Right now, the team lacks two critical components found in any successful season: talent and a clear objective.
The call for immediate production somehow hasn't faded, despite a clear need for talent development. Head coach Byron Scott is searching for different lineup combinations that can, at the very least, help fix the massive hemorrhage on defense and an antiquated (and unrealistic) plan of attack.
Answers might not exist in-house, but it’s on Scott to exhaust every option at his disposal. (On Tuesday night, center Tarik Black played 18 minutes after logging six total in the previous three games.) But the experimentation will continue through the next two weeks, as the Lakers journey on a five-game road trip. Playing rookie Larry Nance Jr. may be a step in the right direction.
“[Nance] will probably get his chance on this road trip,” Scott told Bleacher Report after the Lakers were handed their fourth loss by the Denver Nuggets. “Like I said, I’ve got to find a combination that can go out there and do the things we need to do on a day-to-day basis.”
This is exciting news for a team that could really use a defibrillating presence. Nance Jr. is someone who can crash the glass, capably hound his man and spruce up the defense with a splash of Slam Dunk Contest-worthy athleticism.
He’s yet to play a single second in the NBA, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
After a recent Lakers practice, Nance Jr. decided to work on his outside shot by firing up a few dozen corner threes. Simple catch-and-shoot tries evolved into more difficult step-back attempts, but the 22-year-old’s footwork stayed error-free. He swished far more than he missed, and seconds after his post-practice workout wrapped up, Nance Jr. talked about how that shot—and the rest of his game—can help this Lakers team.
“It’s gonna have to be big time,” he said. “We have Julius, Jordan, D’Angelo, guys that like to get in the paint. And when the defense collapses, I gotta be out there and be able to make shots.”
Despite making both his three-point attempts during the preseason (and missing both during Las Vegas Summer League), Nance Jr. shot 33.3 percent from deep as a senior at the University of Wyoming (on 42 attempts).
It’s not the reason he’s in the NBA, or what most attracted the Lakers to him on draft night. Rather, it's his physical makeup. According to DraftExpress, Nance Jr.’s 7’1.5” wingspan is about an inch longer than average for someone his height. (His father, Larry Nance, was a three-time NBA All-Star who won the dunk contest in 1984. So, pretty good genes.) He tore his ACL in 2014, but will be two years removed from the injury in February, at his athletic peak.
“If we’re playing a little mellow, I come in and hopefully ramp things up a little bit,” he said. “Get a few steals, a blocked shot maybe, offensive rebound, putback. Kind of get the team pumped up and switch the momentum back to our side. That’s what I do best, change the pace of the game.”
Even more important than the unknown contributions Nance Jr. will make this year is where he sits in the Lakers’ ongoing debate between common sense and reality. Los Angeles should be 100 percent focused on its future, and that means playing youngsters as often as possible, if for no other reason than to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses in different situations.
That’s common sense. But Scott mostly sees a roster filled with superior veterans who presumably give the team a better chance to win. Based on how general manager Mitch Kupchak constructed the roster, and recent comments Scott made regarding player development, the organization values short-term competitiveness over long-term prosperity.
Here’s what the Lakers’ head coach told reporters after a recent practice:
"Generally speaking, Scott said the goal is winning games, first and foremost.
“That is the reality,” Scott said. “But the second part of that goal is you’ve still got to develop the young core of guys that you have. That’s my job, to try to win basketball games and in the meantime try to develop young people."
He added, "I’m not always thinking about necessarily developing them. I’m always thinking about trying to win. I’m always thinking about trying to win. The development part comes secondary to that, but in practice and everything is where you really work on the development part."
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Does Nance Jr. give the Lakers a better chance to win? Maybe. Maybe not. But losing games is more than OK right now. Everyone knows that the Lakers have to give their 2016 first-round pick to the Philadelphia 76ers if it falls out of the top three.
On its face, surrendering this year’s lottery pick will set the organization back years. It's certainly not ideal. But things are even worse than that. According to RealGM, the Lakers will forfeit a top-five protected first-round pick to the Orlando Magic in 2018 if they give Philadelphia the pick they owe by 2017.
If the Lakers do not convey that top-three pick to Philadelphia by 2017, they only have to surrender a pair of second-round picks to Orlando in 2017 and 2018. The incentive to lose has never loomed larger, which only further rationalizes Nance Jr.'s playing time.
The Lakers will face serious hardship this season, no matter what they do. But Nance Jr. symbolizes a path to a brighter tomorrow in more ways than one. Playing him is the smart thing to do.
All quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.
