“Player Watch” Kyle Kuzma’s headwind, the road to growth-NBA-Basketball

As one of the four Lakers (Ingram, Ball, Kuzma, Hart) back then, Kuzma is now the longest-served player in the Lakers, and the 2020-21 season has entered its fourth year. In the past four years, he has been touted as the next star to save the Lakers, and at the same time the criticism of him has never stopped. With so many external voices all around, let me take you to see how Kuzma performed this season, which may also include small changes that you haven’t seen…

Positioning

The author believes that the reason why there are many voices in the outside world that Kuzma is an overrated player is because their expectations for Kuzma are a bit excessive. When the Lakers decided to sign a package of young potential players and draft picks to Stud AD, a beast-level player, many people were guessing that the package of the Lakers would have young players. From the perspective of the outside world, except for LBJ, the rest of the players on the roster at the time were basically movable. The most attractive bargaining chips among them were Ball, Ingram, Hart and Kuzma commonly known as the “Four Lakers”. And when the Lakers director Rob Pelinka decided to keep Kuzma, this move was interpreted as the team believes in the chemical effect of Kuzma and LBJ, and intends to support him as the third scoring point besides LBJ and AD.

However, as the 2019-20 season progressed, Kuzma averaged 12.8 points, 4.5 rebounds and 1.3 assists per game. This looks like an ordinary result (18.7 points per game last season), plus sometimes he is seen on the court. There are defensive daze or inexplicable offensive options, and at the same time old teammates Ingram and Ball have played a new atmosphere in the Pelicans (Ingram even played in the star game), so many kind-hearted fans began to have irony. Remarks such as “It would be good if you stayed with Ingram” and “Kuzma was kept because of the rookie bonus”… Maybe this is the mood of hating iron and steel!

Strictly speaking, the rookie bonus may really be one of the original considerations, but expecting Kuzma to become a stable third scoring point with the ball is indeed something we can examine.

Let’s look back at Kuzma’s draft report that year. The template given to Kuzma by NBADRAFT.NET was Henry Ellenson.

To those who don’t know much about it: Henry Ellenson was a power forward picked by the Pistons with the 18th pick in 2016. He averaged 4 points, 2.4 rebounds and 0.5 assists per game. He is no longer playing in the NBA. The more prominent points areThe tall height also has a certain projection ability,Can be classified as so-called high-risk high-reward players.

With a stature that can double up to number three or four, he has good flexibility. With shooting potential, he can score 5 to 6 three-pointers in a game. In terms of defense, his hardware conditionsCan change defenses in the pick and roll, However he did notThere is no consistent offensive method，The details of the defense also need to be strengthenedAnd inLack of stability in shootingwithThe issue of choiceWaiting for doubts made him not in the lottery draft.

From the draft report above, it can be seen that the expectation of Kuzma at the beginning was only a professional green leaf. If you can develop a more stable offensive weapon, you can stand firm in the NBA. During the rookie year, everyone set their sights on Lonzo Ball’s performance, but Kuzma slowly resolved his doubts in the draft report. In addition to evolving shots to be more stable, they also practiced some difficult-to-defend offensive methods such as on-the-go throws, on-the-go hook shots, back-frame singles, backward jumpers, etc. that require coordination. , So that everyone’s expectations of him are getting higher and higher.

However, positioning this problem has always been a big problem for Kuzma. After playing an explosive rookie season, then coach Luke Walton also deliberately trained Kuzma to score points with the ball, thus increasing his chances of attacking with the ball. Even in the regular season of the new coach Frank Vogel’s coaching period, Kuzma can often see Kuzma’s offensive as the second team playing gear and dismantling with the ball, but because he did not have sufficient dribbling skills, let His pick and roll efficiency is not very good. It can be seen from this that it is unrealistic to position Kuzma as the second point to score with the ball. After all, his career scoring method is mostly assisted. From each season of his career, the time distribution of shot touches is less than 2 It can be known that the proportion of seconds is more than half.

* Kyle Kuzma’s mobile phone rate and shooting rate after less than two seconds of touching the ball in his career

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