Los Angeles Lakers Draft: A dark horse pick that could be perfect for LA

The Los Angeles Lakers draft pick will be quite interesting for two reasons. One, no one knows who the Lakers will pick and two, will the pick stay in Los Angeles. Lake Show Life has put out a few articles on who the Lakers might draft but this article is about a player under the radar that Rob Pelinka might need to look at.

Well Lakers fans, Thursday July 29th is the date when all Lake Show Life articles start to really matter. It’s time for the NBA Draft, the event where your Los Angeles Lakers will finally allow the rest of the world a glimpse of the direction they will be taking next season and beyond.

Over the last weekend, Lake Show Life was dominated by free agents linked to the Lakers such as Kyle Lowry, DeMar DeRozan and Buddy Hield.

• Lakers Rumors: Reality of signing Kyle Lowry and DeMar Derozan
• Lakers Rumors: Reports claim Lakers interest in a deal for Buddy Hield

This was the most action to come out of Lakers Nation since they were eliminated by the Phoenix Suns in the first round of the playoffs. With the lack of options to improve the roster financially, no one really knows if the Lakers will draft a player for the future or package the pick for a third star.

• NBA Draft Mock: Los Angeles Lakers find Dennis Schroder’s replacement   
• Los Angeles Lakers: 3 prospects that won’t be traded if picked at 22
• Lakers mock draft: Who the experts have going to the Lakers at 22

Most mock drafts have players like Chris Duarte (Oregon), Jared Butler (Baylor) or Ayo Dosunmu (Illinois) in various Lakers mock drafts at 22. But the funny thing about the NBA Draft…those players could be picked in the first 21 picks before Los Angeles.

If those players get picked, what then?

Well Rashad Phillips mentioned a diamond in the rough out of Arizona State named Josh Christopher. ESPN’s NBA analyst Jalen Rose shared the analysis with his Twitter followers.

Josh Christopher has found himself sliding the board as of late going into the draft.

• He was projected to be a lottery pick in the 2021 NBA draft early in the Sun Devils’ 2020-21 season.
• After the season, Christopher was projected to go in the middle of the first round.
• Now, some NBA mock draft projections have Christopher missing the first round all together.

Christopher was limited by a leg injury in his only season with the Sun Devils that limited him to only 15 games. In that time, he put up averages of 14.3 points, 4.7 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game. Despite the small sample size shown, Christopher still decided to declare for the draft with his projections seemingly all over the place.

Seemingly NBA clubs are still willing to make Christopher a high draft pick based on his athleticism and his scoring despite being partnered with two upperclassmen in Remy Martin and Alonzo Verge. The situation forced him to play out of position at small forward for most of the year and down the draft board.

The Lakers did bring Christopher in for a workout and have the same decisions on the mixed performance of his 15 game season….

• Is this the Josh Christopher that will force up tough contested shots that were incredibly low percentage looks.
• Or is he the athletic player from high school that started to find a rhythm offensively around the time he got hurt which is what NBA teams are banking on continuing at the NBA level.

If Josh Christopher is drafted by the Lakers, he will be the first Sun Devils first-round pick in the NBA draft since 2009 (James Harden). The program haven’t had an NBA draft pick since 2013 (Carrick Felix).

So, without further ado, Lake Show Life takes a deep dive into Josh Christopher and see what his game is all about.