Los Angeles Lakers: Jordan Clarkson Should Remain in LA
With the rumor mill firing on all cylinders, the Los Angeles Lakers have reportedly been shopping Jordan Clarkson. Will he be traded? Or will he remain in purple and gold?
The Los Angeles Lakers are in an obvious state of flux. Nothing is certain except the fact that they will be selecting high in the 2017 NBA Draft. One player’s whose future seems to be up in the air is Jordan Clarkson.
Clarkson can be a bit polarizing. Coming into the NBA, Clarkson had himself a very good rookie season, showing off a surprisingly polished offensive game as he ended up being voted to the All-Rookie first team. It seemed Clarkson was going to be the steal of his draft class and was only going to get better from there.
Fast forward two years later and… Clarkson isn’t exactly a darling anymore. Two seasons later, Jordan Clarkson hasn’t shown very much improvement. If anything, Clarkson has regressed quite a bit.
Gone is Clarkson’s passing, willingness to move the ball and play defense. In its place is a steady stream of shots. Clarkson has become a scorer. Not a particularly good one, but still a valuable bench scorer, not unlike Lou Williams before him.
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Jordan Clarkson’s Per 36 Minutes stats
That’s still valuable. But how valuable, exactly? The Lakers are probably not going to get a good return trading away Clarkson. The fact of the matter is that he isn’t all that valuable to a lot of teams.
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Clarkson is fairly one dimensional and is already 25 years old; at this point, this is the player that he is. The Lakers would be better served to keep him with the current core, rather than trade him for the sake of trading him.
I understand the idea behind it. With the Lakers likely selecting Lonzo Ball in this year’s draft, the team wants to avoid a logjam of talent at the guard position. The team already has one at the power forward slot, and it’s best to avoid having too many logjams.
With that said, this definitely wouldn’t be a logjam because you cannot play D’Angelo Russell and potentially Lonzo Ball for 48 minutes a game. A guard rotation of Russell, Clarkson, and Ball with David Nwaba and Tyler Ennis sprinkled in as needed sounds like a great idea for a team that likely won’t contend for a playoff spot next season.
Additionally, that guard rotation lets all three of Russell, Clarkson, and Ball to alternate between point guard and shooting guard at will, as all three can play with or without the ball.
Now, this isn’t to say all trades involving Clarkson should be off the table. If Orlando or Philadelphia wants to overpay to get a scoring guard, then by all means. Or, if the Lakers identify an area of need they can shore up using Clarkson as the main piece, that is also fine.
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At this point, the team likely won’t get the same value back. So why not hold on to him and see what that guard rotation can do next season? After all, with such a young team, why not let them develop together?