Los Angeles Lakers NBA Summer League Roster at a Glance
By Matt Miller
Jul 14, 2013; Las Vegas, NV, USA; Los Angeles Lakers center Robert Sacre looks into the crowd during a stoppage in play in an NBA Summer League game against the Portland Trailblazers at the Thomas and Mack Center. Mandatory Credit: Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports
Unlike MLB Spring Training, the NBA’s Summer League is not a platform to integrate the young talent, the future faces of your franchise, with the current roster as they both get their legs under them for the upcoming season. There is no Yasiel Puig in the NBA Summer League. In NBA Summer League, the few impact players compete with the legions of players still struggling for the few available NBA roster spots, and it keeps them out of some semblance of trouble in Las Vegas.
Who is fighting for one of those few spots on the Los Angeles Lakers Summer League Roster?
Familiar faces on the Summer League roster include 1st team All NBA cheerleader Robert Sacre. The 7 footer, and late 1st round draft pick from Gonzaga will be on the Lakers roster for the next two seasons. High flying athlete and slasher Chris Douglas Roberts is on the Lakers Summer roster again. The 4 year NBA vet coached by John Calipari out of Memphis, played well enough last year in summer league and the D-League for a short spell to be signed by the Dallas Mavericks.
The Lakers only draft pick, 2nd round pick Ryan Kelly out of Duke, is also going to make the team, and his long range shooting should be a perfect fit for Mike D’Antoni.
The next tier of players are the unexpected contributors department. Marcus Landry attended Wisconsin before most recently playing for the Reno BigHorns in the D-League, has been a surprising contributor thus far. Lazar Hayward is an undersized but versatile forward with a few opportunities in the NBA already, and has put up double digit points despite limited minutes thus far. And Elias Harris, Robert Sacre’s one time Gonzaga teammate, has come in as a rookie and contributed double digit points as a starting forward.
In the fallen from grace department is Josh Selby. When he was at Kansas he was one of the top prospects in the country. He left after his freshman year, and he dropped all the way to number 49 in the 2011 NBA Draft and is struggling to differentiate himself in the summer league.
The next category are the players with local connections who have their shot with the Lakers organization this summer. Travis Hyman was most recently on the LA D-Fenders, but hasn’t had much opportunity this summer. Rookie DJ Seeley is a LA native who played his college ball at Cal State Fullerton after transferring from Cal. The lanky guard’s game matured a lot in his years at Fullerton. Renaldo Woolridge is a rookie forward out of USC who hasn’t seen any game-time yet. And Drew Viney was a First Team all WCC at LMU who recently played in France.
A few players make it out of Summer League to the NBA roster, and if anyone will be included with Robert Sacre and Ryan Kelly it’s more likely to be Lazar Hayward or Chris Douglas Roberts with some NBA experience than Elias Harris or Marcus Landry despite impressing at Summer League to this point.