The Los Angeles Lakers have seen multiple free agents leave for new teams, but they made it a priority to retain one.
The Lakers retained guard Talen Horton-Tucker on a three-year deal worth $32 million.
The 20-year-old guard broke out during the 2020-21 preseason. He attacked the basket en route to multiple impressive scoring outings.
He gradually broke into Frank Vogel’s rotation during the regular season when injuries began accumulating, but he stood out as one of the few shot creators off the bench, a critical component the Lakers lacked from their reserves.
Now that L.A. has Horton-Tucker secured for at least three more seasons, he detailed two areas of his game he wants to improve, via Mike Trudell of Spectrum SportsNet:
THT said he wants to continue to focus on getting better defensively, and improving as a 3-point shooter as he looks forward to fitting in with this veteran roster.
— Mike Trudell (@LakersReporter) August 6, 2021
Based on what Horton-Tucker displayed last season, these two elements are a given. Horton-Tucker has the wingspan (7 feet, 1 inch) to be a pesky defender, but he often found himself getting caught ball-watching and making wrong decisions, which often led to easy shots for his opponents.
Then on 3-pointers, he converted on only 28.2% of his 2.0 attempts; both numbers are short of what he produced last season, though the six-game sample size is much smaller than this past season where he featured in 65 regular-season games.
But if Horton-Tucker can assemble the pieces, his potential could be limitless. It’s easy to see why the Lakers brought him back on a sizeable deal for someone his age who still has a long way to go to leave his imprint on the game.
Horton-Tucker has been in several videos showing off his workout routine, so the Lakers must hope the hard work pays off when he steps onto the court.
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