Los Angeles Lakers: 5 reasons re-signing Alex Caruso will help in long run

5. He can set others up

Caruso entered the NBA in the fall of 2016 with no fanfare or headlines. He was undrafted and was signed by the Oklahoma City Thunder, only to be waived a month later. In the summer of 2017, he found his way onto the Lakers’ training camp roster by virtue of a two-way contract.

He spent most of that season playing in the G League and appeared in only 37 games for the big boys. This past season, he only played in 25 Lakers games, mostly towards the end of the season, but that’s when he started to show that he could play, and play pretty well.

In early March, with Lonzo Ball out for the season and LeBron James about to be shut down for “load management,” Caruso got the call and started to play significant minutes out of necessity. He then became a mini-revelation for the purple and gold.

In the last 18 games of the 2018-19 season, he played 28.0 minutes per game and averaged 4.2 assists per game. That doesn’t sound that impressive, but he had five or more assists in seven of those games. That includes each of the last six games of the season, all of which LeBron sat out.

In an unexpected win over Utah in the second-to-last game of the year, Caruso had 11 assists against a team that ranked second in defensive efficiency.

As his stint wore on this past spring, he showed a greater and greater ability to be a decent floor general. As a result, the Lakers won six of their last 10 games despite being without several of their key guys.