Los Angeles Lakers: 5 Reasons they may already have their “Big 3”
By Robert Marvi
4. Kyle Kuzma is a very good scorer
In many ways, he stepped up his game in his sophomore season. He upped his scoring average from 16.1 to 18.7, his two-point shooting percentage from 51.1 to 55.3 and even his assists from 1.8 to 2.5.
From day one, he possessed the type of polished offensive arsenal that you’d expect from someone who has been in the league for at least five years and has made a couple of All-Star games.
The one thing Kuzma struggled at this season was three-point shooting, as he shot just 30.3 percent from downtown. But in his rookie season he made a solid 36.6 percent of his attempts from beyond the arc despite hitting the rookie wall hard, which suggests that with an offseason of hard work on his outside shot, he’ll be fine in that department.
Simply improving his three-point shooting to where it was his rookie year would get him to about 20 points a game. So would improving his decent but not great 75.2 free throw shooting percentage.
Kuzma may be somewhat one-dimensional as a player, but history has shown that the third best player in a “Big 3” can get away with it, as long as they are very good at that one dimension, and aren’t too bad at other facets of the game.
Kuzma’s defense isn’t exactly anything to brag about, but it improved somewhat as the season went along.
Besides, offensively he already compares favorably with guys like Chris Bosh, Kevin Love, James Worthy and Robert Parish.