Yesterday afternoon, Thomas Bryant decided to sign a basic salary contract with Lakers . He joined the team again after 5 years and will compete for the position of the team's starting center. It is expected that competitors It will be center Damian Jones who also joined with a basic salary. The following will discuss what Thomas Bryant can bring to the Lakers and why the editor likes this signing.
Time goes back to the 2017 draft
Lakers fans should be deeply impressed by the 2017 draft. Back then, the Lakers selected Lonzo Ball with the second overall pick in the first round. At that time, Lonzo Ball was The media praised him to the heavens. He grew up in California and studied at UCLA, a famous local school (by the way, Westbrook is a well-known alumnus of the school). Therefore, it was natural for the Lakers to select him with the second overall pick and was considered by the media to be closely related to the team. Lonzo Ball is a natural fit. Later, they selected Kuzma and Josh Hart with the 27th and 30th picks. The former did not have a very outstanding performance in college games, while the latter came from the prestigious school Villanova. As seniors, there is a big gap between these two rookies in terms of popularity and expectations compared to Lonzo Ball. To be honest, Lonzo Ball's popularity at the time was not the same as that of LeBron James in 2003. is comparable.
To put it simply, Jayson Tatum, who is one pick behind Lonzo Ball and currently plays for the Celtics, has a more successful career than Lonzo Ball. In his NBA career, Jayson Tatum has been selected to the All-Star Game three times. This season, he is the MVP of the Eastern Conference Finals and is also one of the players on the first team of the year. Instead, Kuzma and Josh Hart performed surprisingly well. The former showed versatile scoring methods, while the latter was known for his solid defense and good 3-point shooting rate, which also indirectly explained the Lakers' ball control. The scouting department's success in that year's draft was able to discover Kuzma and Josh Hart with the lower picks in the first round.
With the joining of LeBron James, the team's timeline has been pushed forward, making the team focus on the championship as its primary goal and no longer spend time cultivating new players. Lonzo Ball and Josh Hart were traded to the Pelicans in exchange for star center Anthony Davis, and Kuzma was also traded to the Wizards last season in exchange for Westbrook had a disappointing performance last season. Therefore, in just five years, the three rookies selected by the Lakers in the first round of the 2017 draft are no longer on the team, but they all have stable playing time in the teams they play for in the league. Lonzo Bow Er and Kuzma served as the team's starters in last season's games.
Thomas Bryant returned to the team after many years
When talking about the 2017 draft, we have to mention the team’s only second-round pick that year. The Lakers selected the 42nd pick in the second round of that draft. Thomas Bryant was selected. He attracted the attention of the Lakers team with his good grasp of 3-pointers and hard energy. But I believe that what attracted the attention of fans was his name Thomas Bryant, who is the most related to the modern Lakers. The outstanding star Kobe Bryant has the same name. Thomas Bryant did not have many opportunities to play in his rookie season with the Lakers. He only played 15 NBA games in the entire season, leaving a record of 1.5 points and 1.1 rebounds. However, the Lakers actually transferred him to the Lakers' G- League team training allowed him to have more game time and adapt to the intensity of the league step by step. In the end, Thomas Bryant successfully entered the G-League rookie first team, which was a good ending to his rookie season. .
Unfortunately, before the start of the next season, because the Lakers selected Moritz Wagner in the draft, and then signed LeBron James in the free market, and because James joined with a basic salary. Veteran players (such as Rajon Rondo Lance Stephenson ) made the team roster exceed the limit of 15 people, and the Lakers ended up with Ivica Zubac and Thomas Bryan Te made a choice and decided to keep Ivica Zubac, who had greater potential, and cut Thomas Bryant. After Thomas Bryant became a free agent, he accepted the offer from Wizards and became a Wizards player in the new season. Benefiting from injuries to the centers on the same team, such as starting center Howard , who only played in 9 games throughout the season, Thomas Bryant got a lot of playing opportunities with the Wizards. In the 72 games he played, Thomas Bryant started 53 games.
finally averaged 10.5 points, 6.3 rebounds and 0.9 blocks per game in an average of 21 minutes. This performance successfully convinced the Wizards to renew Thomas Bryant's three-year, $25 million contract. contract. In the next two seasons, the Wizards continued to develop his outside shooting and defensive rim protection abilities. His 3-point shooting percentage exceeded 40% in both the 19-20 and 20-21 seasons. However, in the 20-21 season, Thomas Bryant suffered a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament, which took him nearly a year to complete the recovery process. This injury forced him to play only 37 games in the past two seasons. .
Due to his unsatisfactory performance after recovering from injury, he averaged 7.4 points, 4 rebounds and a 28.6% 3-point shooting rate in 16.3 minutes. The Wizards did not reach a contract extension with the player after the end of the season, making him a free agent. . After going full circle, Thomas Bryant signed with the Lakers in this summer's free market and joined the team again. Even if Thomas Bryant's defense is not very good, and the injury seems to have prevented him from performing his best performance for the time being, the editor believes that the player still has a chance to perform brilliantly again, especially to show his The 3-point shooting ability that he developed in the Wizards, and in fact he is only 24 years old now, there is still a lot of time and room for improvement. Personally, I hope the Lakers can use the Bird Rights and Thomas Bryant after the end of this season. Reached a multi-year contract extension and continued to stay with the team. In any case, the operation of signing Thomas Bryant back with a minimum salary is personally considered a very good signing. While solving the problem of interior space, he also found a young player who still has potential to be developed.
Summary
After finding a center suitable for the team, the Lakers' next step should be to try to solve the team's lack of perimeter shooting weakness in the trading market, and this depends on whether the Lakers can replace Westbrook. Irving , or even exchanging Talon Horton-Tucker into Joe Harris or even Seth Curry with a cheaper salary. Currently, the only team that is interested in Irving is the Lakers. (After all, Irving's behavior in recent seasons may have scared other teams). It depends on how much sincerity the Lakers will show, such as how many first-round picks they are willing to hand over, and whether Durant will eventually be traded. Other teams ordered the Nets to reorganize the team and trade Irving out.
