Luke Kennard Discussion

both can be true: gabe is better when he's got the ball more, but he's still not good.



he was a solid defender his second two years (right before we signed him), but he's basically never been a good offensive player. that last row is this year, and he was just unplayable here.

if we ever really got miami gabe, it would have been an ok mle signing. but we never did, so it was terrible.

here's kennard:



i think we're banking on his offense to look better playing off our absolutely elite playmakers (atlanta had none of this this year with young being out for a lot of it). if he can keep his defense at just "meh" (which is where it's been so far this year, he becomes a plus-player pretty quickly.

more importantly, he doesn't need the ball on offense in order to play his best game.

 

I mentioned this last night, but it jumped out he processes much quicker than who he replaced. One of the quicker reaction speeds on the roster.

 

He must see the floor a lot easier than midget Gabe too being like 3" taller. Even Bronny looked taller and bigger than him.

 

Well he's a perfect fit on offense. Teams are not going to leave him on the corners and he's a nice passer if he's closed out. Isn't afraid to take it the basket vs a guy like Gabe

Not really sure why he doesn't seem to have worked on his upper body strength. On defense he gets pushed around on drives - if he was stronger it would help his D a lot.

It's a marginal move but may have a bigger impact then most people expected as the lakers have been missing these roleplayer who can win you a game (see the NY game where I though the Lakers outplayed New York for huge chunks of the game but freaking Landry Shamet went off)

 

A+ for replacing Gabe with Luke (as usual no one saw coming) and additionally adding more potential scoring and equal or better (size) defense than Gabe to the bench with Kobe Bufkin.

 

Most of Fitbit's features are kind of useless if you're not connected to the app on your phone, so that part makes sense.

 

i think 52 years did?

and to be fair, if you told me in august our deadline move would be gabe for kennard, i would have been pretty upset, lol.

 

Good. Good. More of this LT. More on this. Just leave out the Bronny James stuff out. Other than that, perfect progression. Keep it up.

 

Gotta keep LT grounded or he’ll be expecting every acquisition to be a home run

 

Didn't realize Kennard is only 29. Feels like he's been in the league forever; some thoughts from DB from LG. Had to post again because I posted in wrong thread.

 

Yes, I agree. First game with the Lakers and he knows his spots, the plays, and where to create an opening for wide open players.

I think being on the Clippers helped him develop that because he played alongside better talent and adjusted to them.

The defense is the only issue but in reality, he wouldn't be available to the Lakers for practically free if he was good at defense so it's not fair to pin that on him.