Lakers’ Talen Horton-Tucker hurts trade value with bad Drew League game

The Los Angeles Lakers are seemingly looking for any excuse to offload Talen Horton-Tucker. Once viewed as a key cog in the Lakers’ rotation after a promising start to his career, the former second-round pick has proven to be a huge liability alongside LeBron James and Anthony Davis.

The Lakers gave Horton-Tucker a three-year, $32 million contract last offseason that made him the fourth-highest paid player on the team. To say the Iowa State product failed to live up to that billing would be an understatement.

In 60 games last year, Horton-Tucker averaged 10 points with a lowly 41.6% field goal percentage, which is well below league average. He also shot threes at a 26.9% clip, which ranked 10th-worst in the entire Association.

How much has THT’s trade value plummeted? Well, he couldn’t even net Los Angeles Jerami Grant at last season’s trade deadline.

It’s tough to say if Horton-Tucker’s value has reached rock-bottom, but that might be the case after his lackluster Drew League cameo over the weekend.

Lakers forward Talen Horton-Tucker got roasted for his Drew League performance.

Yikes! Even playing against lesser competition, Horton-Tucker finished with just 14 points while shooting 38% from the floor. That’s not the performance fans expected after teammate (but for how much longer?) LeBron James dropped 42 points in a Saturday Drew League game while going through the motions.

At the end of the day, Horton-Tucker is a professional basketball player, and — despite his struggles in 2021-22 — a pretty good one at that. He should’ve taken the Drew League competition to school. Instead, the three-year pro looked like the inefficient player that hamstrung the Lakers’ bench unit last season.

Folks in NBA circles couldn’t care less about what happens in the Drew League, but the fact Horton-Tucker personified an average Joe while playing against average Joes, most of whom likely work 9-5 jobs and play in the glorified recreation league to scratch heir basketball itch, says a lot about how far he’s fallen.

If you think the LeBron comparison is unfair, fine. What if we told you Raptors guard Malachi Flynn casually poured in 73 points (!) in a pro-am over the weekend? That might be an extreme example, but Flynn’s dominance is what you’d expect when an NBA player in this setting, especially considering so much of Horton-Tucker’s game is dependent on breaking down defenders with his dribbling in isolation.

https://twitter.com/Ballislife/status/1548440751247220737

For added context, Flynn played 12.2 minutes for the Raptors last season (Horton-Tucker played 25.2 for LA), and has averaged 4.3 points in his career.

At this point, the Lakers should take anything they can get for THT. At the very least, his days of being the centerpiece in a trade are long gone.

Lakers should make this Talen Horton-Tucker trade for sharpshooting forward

It's only a matter of time until the Los Angeles Lakers trade Talen Horton-Tucker. This is why the Lake show should go and flip him for this sharpshooter.