3 players on the Lakers roster whose minutes must be slashed

3. Talen Horton-Tucker

Talen Horton-Tucker has seen his trade value in the NBA decrease substantially over the last calendar year. At this time last year there was speculation of the Lakers trading for Kyle Lowry and that deal ultimately did not happen as the Lakers did not want to include THT in the deal.

Now, this year, THT’s value as an asset declined rapidly and the Lakers were not able to get any deal done for the former second-round pick. While there is still the hope of his potential coming to fruition, it is not hard to see why his value tanked. He has been bad this year.

Horton-Tucker has a -4.2 Box Plus/Minus this season, which gives him the worst number of any player still on the Lakers. In fact, of the 185 players in the NBA with at least 1,000 minutes played this season, THT ranks second to last in BPM.

He has been really bad this season and now that the deadline is passed and the Lakers no longer need to up his value they need to cut his minutes. It is going to be hard to do because of his defensive potential and how bad the team is defensively but it is not like THT has even been all that great on defense this season.

That is why it is so important to add defensive role players on the buyout market. The team needs it as it needs to play THT less.

The third-year combo guard is averaging 25.7 minutes per game. With how he is playing, he should not be touching 20 minutes per game. He can’t shoot, his ability as a ball-handler is needed less with both LeBron and Westbrook and his defense has not been up to par this season.

THT is still only 21 years old and has plenty of time to blossom. He was simply thrown into the fire too soon. Let’s not forget that we are less than three years removed from him falling all the way to the 52nd overall pick.