Los Angeles Lakers Player Spotlight: Devontae Cacok

We are going to be without Los Angeles Lakers basketball for quite some time so we decided to spotlight every player on the roster.

The next player to be covered in the “Los Angeles Lakers Player Spotlight” series is Devontae Cacok.

Biography

Devontae Cacok might have the most interesting story on how he made his way onto the star-studded Los Angeles Lakers roster. He spent four years at UNC Wilmington. Even in college, Cacok had to fight his way to get the playing time he deserved. In his freshman year, he only played in 29 games and shockingly started in just 4 of them.

After the hard comings of his freshman year, however, he went on to scorch anyone in UNC Williamton’s path. Impressively in his junior year, he averaged 17.7 points and 13.5 rebounds and 15.2 points and 12.3 rebounds in his senior season.

Cacok even made the only three that he attempted in his college career. After college, Cacok went undrafted in the 2019 NBA draft and signed an exhibit 10 contract with the Lakers to play on their summer league roster.

Once the summer league was over the Lakers waived him, however, they would sign him to the summer league team the South Bay Lakers. He has continued to push through and prove his worth to the team. With the South Bay Lakers Cacok has averaged 19.4 points and 11.9 rebounds.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Throughout both his college and G-league career Cacok has proven that he is an effective big man against every level of competition he has faced. Also, with him standing at only 6’8″ as the center position it makes what he does that much more impressive.

On top of this, if basketball as a whole keeps trending towards a “small ball” era like it has shown signs of doing Cacok would be the prototype player to put at the center position. With his solid and efficient inside scoring along with his elite rebounding for his size, he seems to be someone that can help the Lakers in the future.

The main weakness in his game is his free throw shooting. With Cacok being an almost exclusive inside scorer it means that he will be at the free-throw line often. However, with him only shooting 57% from the line in the G-League this is something that is dire for him to improve on.

What He Brings To The Team

In terms of this year, it is very unlikely that Cacok will be with the Lakers going into the playoffs.

However, if the motivation and desire to make it to the next level continues with him, along with the potential that he has he could be a very valuable piece to the Lakers roster in a post-LeBron era or even sooner.