Tag: RJ Cole

Lakers add RJ Cole to summer league roster

The Lakers have signed University of Connecticut guard RJ Cole to their summer league roster.

On Thursday, the Los Angeles Lakers acquired the 35th pick in the NBA draft and used it to select Max Christie, a 6-foot-6 guard out of Michigan State University.

They also added several other players by signing them as undrafted rookie free agents. The most notable were Shareef O’Neal, the son of Lakers great Shaquille O’Neal, and Scotty Pippen Jr., the son of former Chicago Bulls star Scottie Pippen.

L.A. also brought on board RJ Cole, a 6-foot-1 guard who played for the University of Connecticut and went unselected in Thursday’s draft.

Cole is 6 feet, 1 inch and 185 pounds and a native of Jersey City, N.J, where he was an outstanding student (4.0 GPA) at St. Anthony High School.

His first two years of college were spent at Howard University in the nation’s capital. He put up excellent numbers, averaging 23.7 points a game as a freshman and 21.4 points the following season.

Cole initially declared for the draft, but withdrew and transferred to UConn. After he was a redshirt for the 2019-20 campaign, he averaged 12.2 points a game in 2021, then put up 15.8 points per contest this season while earning first-team All-Big East honors.

He is a solid scorer and shooter, although his low shooting percentages are a red flag. He has a career shooting accuracy of 40.4% from the field. Although he shot over 38% from 3-point range as a sophomore and junior, that mark plunged to 33.9% in 2022.

But he is a fairly good facilitator. Cole averaged 4.1 assists a game this year, and in his two years at Howard, he went over six assists per contest both seasons.

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