Kyle Kuzma: Lakers' traditional ethos in trade market makes deal logical
Friday 24 January 2020 21:53, UK
The urgency that has caused the Lakers to previously make mistakes in the trade market may now be an asset as the team looks to move Kyle Kuzma, and Sky Sports NBA analyst Mark Deeks explains how – if the team sticks with its usual mid-season strategy – it has little choice but to deal him.
Ten years ago, the LA Lakers were NBA champions. They won 57 regular season games and conquered the Boston Celtics in a seven-game NBA Finals series to win their sixteenth NBA Championship, the second-highest total all time behind only the 17 of those self-same Celtics. Over the course of its entire history, the Lakers franchise have the most NBA finals Appearances of all time (31), the most wins of all time (3,771 and counting, regular and postseason combined), and have only missed the postseason eleven times in their 71 years.
Of course, six of those eleven have come in a row. After winning their last title, the Lakers won 57 more games the next season but were swept in the second round by the Dallas Mavericks, and since then have only made the playoffs twice more; losing again in the second round the following year as the third seed and then just about sneaking in 2012 as the seventh seed with 45 wins, only to be swept by the San Antonio Spurs in the first round. Since then, they have never finished higher than last season's tenth place in the Western Conference, bottoming out to as low as 17 wins at one point.
You will already know that this year is very different. The signing of LeBron James in the summer of 2018 paired with the trade for Anthony Davis this past summer has given the Lakers a phenomenal core duo that they have ridden to the very top of the competitive Western Conference. They are currently the provisional number one seed with a 36-9 record, second in the entire NBA only to the 39-6 Milwaukee Bucks and four-and-a-half games ahead of the Utah Jazz out west. Even with the addition of Davis, after the disappointment of the last six seasons and last year in particular, few envisioned the Lakers being quite this good this early.
The postseason-less streak, then, will end this year. 'Lakers Exceptionalism' is back in business, and there exists a legitimate chance at the seventeenth championship in franchise history. With this in mind, it might be time to double down on a franchise-defining trade, and urgency when it comes to their roster moves is something that they have exhibited even throughout the doldrum years.
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Because of the idea of Lakers Exceptionalism - a slightly nebulous concept, the core of which is the idea that the Lakers should always be contending and thus only target the best players and immediate success - the Lakers have invariably exhibited a tendency to be buyers rather than sellers in the trade market. This is something that has been true of the team even when they weren't good.
Last year, for example, the Lakers traded a 2021 second-round pick and their previous second-round pick Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk to the Detroit Pistons in exchange for the short-term rental of Reggie Bullock. No one should be under the illusion that Mykhailiuk and the second-round pick are premium assets, yet they are nevertheless assets for the future; considering his lack of upside and contract situation, Bullock was not going to be an asset rather than providing 30-something games of quality outside shooting.
Mykhailiuk, also a shooter at the same position, could in theory have fit that role, but it was felt more important to get someone in who already had NBA experience of it, thus (theoretically) improving the short-term quality of the team by sacrificing the longer term. Bullock did his part well enough, but as the team missed the playoffs, it ultimately made no difference, and two assets were lost.
A much more regrettable trade last deadline saw the team move the contract of Michael Beasley along with promising young centre Ivica Zubac to the LA Clippers in exchange for veteran shooting big man Mike Muscala, a move which has given one of their most immediate rivals a starting calibre centre, while the Lakers have nothing to show for it. They did not even get salary savings, as all players involved in the deal, Beasley included, were on expiring deals.
In Zubac, the Lakers gave up a good young player, someone they knew to be a good young player having been productive with them over the previous couple of seasons, in exchange merely for the rental of a veteran who they thought would be slightly more useful in the postseason push. As it happened, though, Muscala did not play well and was allowed to leave as a free agent, and thus the Lakers gave away Zubac for literally nothing.
These are certainly not the only examples. While they occasionally have made some moves that saw them take on assets in exchange for the unwanted contracts of other teams while at the low point of this lottery stretch, such as in their moves for Jeremy Lin and Jose Calderon, slightly desperate moves to try to keep the previous playoff window alive saw the, give up a first-round pick for journeyman backup Ramon Sessions, another first-round pick for Jordan Hill and multiple draft picks and money for both Dwight Howard and Steve Nash, none of which worked out. And then of course, this summer, the cupboard was almost fully bared when trading with New Orleans for Davis.
That last move has already worked out considering that Davis's presence has elevated the Lakers back into championship contention. But one perceived asset was left behind - third-year forward Kyle Kuzma. And in his case, perhaps the same urgency that has been a problem in the past might now be a justification for moving him at this deadline with a view to completing the team.
On the season, Kuzma is averaging only 13.2 points and 3.9 rebounds per game numbers both vastly down on the 18.7/5.5 he averaged last year but also down on his career averages of 16.5/5.5. Whereas he thrived as a volume shooter on two previous incarnations of the Lakers team, he has yet to find his place in proceedings with both James and Davis in tow, and is posting a -0.5 VORP (Value Over Replacement Player) on the season.
Kuzma has not helped himself by still not playing a successful brand of defence at any position. Being inconsistent on the offensive end and overly looking to take jumpers rather than make more controlled plays for himself or others, he is a streak-shooting stretch four who does not rebound the position well nor defend the back line of the defence, and thus is only as good as his shot-making abilities on any given night.
That said, in being young, cheap, athletic and a talented ball-handler and shot-maker, Kuzma does have an eclectic mix of skills that should parse well in the modern NBA if ever he can fully tap into them. There is value to be had there as a reclamation project for someone, if not these Lakers currently, and although it would mean selling low on a player recently thought of as being so valuable to the team that they reportedly abstained from including him in the Davis trade talks, the fact that they have a championship-calibre team, one that Kuzma is not playing championship-calibre basketball within, would justify this seismic strategic shift.
Trading Kuzma now would not be a Zubac situation unless they want to trade in for something as equally forgettable as Muscala's time with the team. This surely will not happen, and Kuzma even at this low point has more value than that; a name passed around all ready for him is Bogdan Bogdanovic of the Sacramento Kings, a quality offensive player who would provide needed secondary and tertiary ball-handling and playmaking ability on the wing as an upgrade to Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to pair with LeBron.
To get what might only be a rental from a player once thought to be a key part of the medium- and long-term future of the franchise will be somewhat galling, to be sure. But if Kuzma is not going to be able to be the third option on the team, and in short order, then the ethos of Lakers Exceptionalism demands it.
