LipSkinMatter wrote:BNM wrote:Illmatic12 wrote:Kuzma is the only Lakers young guy who can potentially space the floor , which is important given Williamson's lack of shooting.
Also he can play small ball 5 next to Zion. It's a pretty good fit actually given that ZIon will cover up his defensive mistakes.
Kuzma == .303 3FG%, 2nd worst in the league for any player that averaged > 5.0 3FGA/G.
Kuzma at the 5 == layup drill for the other team. They tried it with him and LeBron and it failed miserably so they quickly abandoned it.
I find it funny that the Lakers and NOP are fighting over a guy who is a bad fit next to Zion and doesn't want to play for a small market team.
At this point, I think the only reason NOP even wants him is to
screw gut the Lakers as badly as possible.
You just waxed poetic about how bad Kuzma is and then said if the Lakers traded him they would be gutted. How can both be true? If he's that bad, what's the big deal if they lose him?
Because he's yet another rookie contract player the Lakers would have to replace, and a very cheap one at that ($1.9 million in 2019-20). Say the Lakers do cave and give up Kuzma, Ball and Ingram. They are taking back $9 million more in salary than they are sending out. That means rescinding all of their free agents to have $29 million in cap space with nine roster spots to fill. Of course, they can spend that on another max contract player and then fill out the remaining 8 roster spots with min contract guys - to me, that sounds pretty gutted.
Kuzma may not be great, and a poor fit next to Zion, but he is at least a rotation level player for the Lakers on a very cheap contract. Losing him hurts their depth more than it helps NOP. Which is exactly why I think NOP is holding the Lakers feet to the fire on this one.