Kyle Kuzma can play
Recently I wrote on Kyle Kuzma’s goals for the year. One key point was he looked like the steal of the draft in Summer League. That trend continued with Kuzma looking like a couple dozen teams blew it passing on him in the draft.
Pros
The man can flat out score. Kuzma led all Lakers in scoring (19) and field goal percentage (75%) excepting Thomas Bryant who was 1-1. He scored on a variety of shots including two very difficult running hook shots in the lane.
Kuzma also did the little things and looked good overall on offense and defense. He never looked like a rookie or like he felt out of place.
Cons
He shot 1-for-4 from 3-point line. We’ll give him a pass on this for one game as his shot looked solid and he had quality looks. He was also not the only Laker to struggle from deep as we will see in a moment.
Bottom line. Kyle Kuzma continues to look like the steal of the draft and a future starter for the Lakers. Randle and Nance have to be looking over their shoulder wondering how quickly he will improve.