Unpopular opinion: THT should be in the rotation if he's on the roster on opening day
Posted: Sat Aug 6, 2022 6:54 am
This isn't because I have hope that he has star potential. It's simple asset management. The plan would still be to trade him at the deadline.
THT is 21 years old, and wouldn't the first player to show some improvements in that. More important, his value is an all time low and can only go up from here. He has a player option the following year that he'll surely pick up, so any team trading for him knows that they have another year of him moving forward, which right now is considered a bad thing, but could easily go the other way.
If you're trading him alongside a pick, a higher valued THT can obviously get you a better return. Who knows, maybe he even improves his value so much that you could trade him straight up for a better fitting piece.
I think you have to atleast try to raise his value. If he's last year bad, and the team is losing, cut the experiment short and move on, but he needs to get a chance imo. I know we just signed Walker and Brown, but you have sacrifice some of their minutes, alongside Reeves'. Find some pg minutes for him if you have to. I think it's something the Lakers have to do.
Out of all of our assets from the last rebuild, I think the only one who was really mismanaged was Randle. In his final year, he was demoted to the bench in favor of Nance to start the season, and further overlooked in favor of Kuzma. He eventually showed some tangible improvement in his game, but it was far too late. The sample size was too small, and his overall numbers were too low. As a result, instead of getting an asset in the deadline for a young player that wasn't in our future plans, we lost in RFA the following summer with nothing in return.
The two situations are obviously different in many ways, but the lesson should have been learned right then. Do not neglect a younger player just because he isn't in your future plans, especially if their value is at it's all time lowest.
THT is 21 years old, and wouldn't the first player to show some improvements in that. More important, his value is an all time low and can only go up from here. He has a player option the following year that he'll surely pick up, so any team trading for him knows that they have another year of him moving forward, which right now is considered a bad thing, but could easily go the other way.
If you're trading him alongside a pick, a higher valued THT can obviously get you a better return. Who knows, maybe he even improves his value so much that you could trade him straight up for a better fitting piece.
I think you have to atleast try to raise his value. If he's last year bad, and the team is losing, cut the experiment short and move on, but he needs to get a chance imo. I know we just signed Walker and Brown, but you have sacrifice some of their minutes, alongside Reeves'. Find some pg minutes for him if you have to. I think it's something the Lakers have to do.
Out of all of our assets from the last rebuild, I think the only one who was really mismanaged was Randle. In his final year, he was demoted to the bench in favor of Nance to start the season, and further overlooked in favor of Kuzma. He eventually showed some tangible improvement in his game, but it was far too late. The sample size was too small, and his overall numbers were too low. As a result, instead of getting an asset in the deadline for a young player that wasn't in our future plans, we lost in RFA the following summer with nothing in return.
The two situations are obviously different in many ways, but the lesson should have been learned right then. Do not neglect a younger player just because he isn't in your future plans, especially if their value is at it's all time lowest.
