Lakers: Kyle Kuzma and the six most impressive rookies in team history
By Jason Reed
The Los Angeles Lakers have one of the most promising young cores in the NBA. A big addition to the young core has been sleeper draft pick, Kyle Kuzma.
The Los Angeles Lakers really did an excellent job in the 2017 NBA Draft. With the second overall pick, the Lakers selected Lonzo Ball, who has proven to be a really great player outside of some cold spells shooting the basketball. Alongside Ball, the Lakers selected Kyle Kuzma and Josh Hart with the 27th and 30th overall selections, respectively.
All three have been fantastic. Ball is the only pick in the top-five to compete with Jayson Tatum for any sort of Rookie of the Year hardware (although that will go to either Ben Simmons or Donovan Mitchell).
Kuzma is in the running for the Rookie of the Year award and will arguably finish third behind both Simmons and Mitchell; he was passed on 26 times. Hart, who may not have the same mainstream coverage, stepped up big in Lonzo Ball’s absence before fracturing his hand.
Kuzma has been the most impressive, though, and will join a list of legendary rookies to suit up in the purple and gold. Here is how Kuzma ranks among the top-six Laker rookies of all-time.
6. James Worthy
Fun fact: every rookie on this list (outside of Kuzma, of course) is a Hall of Famer. While I don’t want to put any pressure on the rest of Kyle Kuzma’s career, he is setting the bar pretty high for himself.
James Worthy cracks the top-six by giving the Lakers an impressive rookie season off of the bench in the 1982-1983 season. Worthy scored 13.4 points per game while hauling in 5.2 rebounds and 1.2 steals in 25.6 minutes per game.
Worthy came into the league during the early stages of Magic Johnson’s career as he was carving himself out to be the best point guard of all-time. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was halfway through his Lakers’ tenure and the Purple and Gold made it to the NBA Finals; where they were swept by the Philadelphia 76ers.
Worthy, though, would go on to have a Hall of Fame career as well as haul in three of the Lakers’ five NBA Championships with Johnson and Abdul-Jabbar.