NippySudz wrote:stan francisco wrote:You’re preaching to the choir. Last year, he cut more off the ball. Vogel’s system has very few sharp diagonal cuts off the ball in it, which is one of the things I expected him to excel in this year.
He’s sort of the third option behind Bron and AD right now, but no where near being the clear third option. The triangle would fit Kuz. Luke ran a few great sets for Kuz. Watch film, Frank!
In Kuzma’s defense, he went from scoring 20PPG behind Bron last year, where he and Ingram shared the second option scoring role. This year, as a forgotten afterthought behind TWO superstars, he still puts up almost the same scoring production. It could be argued that’s more impressive than last year’s scoring.
Meanwhile, on my side of the ball, his defense has improved significantly. I had doubts about his mindset there but no more. Impressive growth in short time.
I guess the Kuzma I see could be another year out, but we’ll see. The ASB is over, time to go all out, Kuz!
I still expect him to be our third star. Maybe my timing is off but now is when he should explode.
My guess is still that nobody will want him traded after the season is over. Especially not for a $4M player in return.
Think you're putting too much blame on Vogel. Again you don't want to put blame much of it on kuzma. You want to deflect it other places including on LeBron James. Which doesn't make sense because LeBron is probably the only guy to consistently pass to him.
We've heard from two teammates(Jared Dudley and cousins) and a former NBA player in Matt Barnes and from kuzma himself which you pointed out by the way, that he's concerned with his mins, touches, and establishing himself long term.
All the vets are the team are telling him to find ways to contribute. That has nothing to do with vogels system. That has to deal with effort and energy to contribute. That's the same thing Kobe asked Dwight to do the first go around when Dwight wanted to post up. If the vets are telling him to keep cutting , it's because they see it's there..
This is a blessing in disguise. It's giving him a Chance to work on other areas of his game where he's weak at. He's had a few 5+ asts games which wasn't a thing in the past. In the past, his career high was 2asts. That lets.me k ow he's improving his vision and understanding how to read the defense and offense..a very good sign.
He's not just gonna turn it on and avg like 20 especially with less touches. Kuz has talent but he's not skilled. It would be asking a lot of him. It would be kinda unfair to him.
All Laker fans can ask him to do is compete and bring the energy every night. Find ways to contribute.
Tony Ferguson likes to say, "consistency x effort = confidence
"
Sent from my LM-Q710(FGN) using Tapatalk
He’s already proven that he can do what you’re asking of him. Again, watch the last 10-20 games of last season, then talk about how he can’t do consistently what he already proved capable of last year. Mind you,consistently and efficiently, in flow with the offense.
1) Vogel should call Luke and talk about Kuz. Figure out how to better incorporate Kuz offensively
2) LeBron should include Kuzma more in the offense, get him some more touches early in the clock..
3) Kuzma should get his head straight, chill and play Detroit ball. He’s overthinking the offense, deferring too much to LBJ, not instigating enough on his own.
Please stop portraying my points as something they’re not. I’ve been very critical of Kuz, too, lately in this thread and you know it. I don’t play favorites. I’m a Laker fan, not a Kuzma fan, Kobe fan, LeBron or AD fan. I’m a Laker fan. And not once did I just blame Vogel and LBJ and pretend Kuz is perfect. Far from it. Nor am I here to ‘win’ discussions. Just calling it like I see it.
This team needs a third star. Kuzma is it. Rest of roster is vets, and Caruso could of course blow up. I’m on Caruso’s bandwagon since before the bandwagon but I think Kuzma’s offense of last spring was so consistently impressive, his star potential is the highest on the team behind LBJ and AD. Period.
If you haven’t watched those games of Kuzma’s last year, you can’t help but shoot from the hip and there’s no way for you of knowing where I’m coming from or even if I’m full of ****, blind or have a lack of understsnding of basketball. Calling it as fairly as I can, I don’t have any other agenda.
Stan out.