Tag: Taurean Prince

Lakers summer player goals: Taurean Prince

New Lakers forward Taurean Prince can become a big part of the team’s success by focusing on these three things.

Training camp for the 2023-24 NBA season is slowly but surely approaching, and while there is plenty of time before it begins, it’s time for players to start ramping up their training and preparation.

That’s especially true for the Los Angeles Lakers, who are hoping to win their 18th world championship next summer. They magically remade what was a broken roster in January and February, and now they’re aiming for the sky rather than just trying to tread water.

Looking to fill their need for at least one 3-and-D wing, the Lakers signed forward Taurean Prince in early July. He has a shot at being a very key contributor for them this coming season, and he could possibly even have a shot at being in the starting lineup if he works on these three things.

New Laker Taurean Prince talks about the team’s high standards

Forward Taurean Prince, whom the Lakers officially signed on Thursday, likes how the organization aims high.

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For the last few years, the Los Angeles Lakers have lacked any true 3-and-D wings, a weakness many believed they needed to address if they are to win another championship.

While they acquired defensive standout Jarred Vanderbilt in February, he is a poor 3-point shooter. Perhaps Max Christie, a second-round draft pick in 2022 who showed promise in spot duty, will be ready to crack the rotation, but it’s not a certainty.

In response, the Lakers signed 6-foot-6 forward Taurean Prince on Thursday. He is the type of 3-and-D forward they have needed, and he could make a difference come playoff time.

At his introductory press conference, he talked about how the aura and “high standards” of the organization appeal to him.

Prince also said he wants to aim to shoot 40% from 3-point range this coming season. He made 38.1% of his attempts from downtown this past season, including 43.2% from the corners and 40.9% on catch-and-shoot treys.

What the experts are saying about the Lakers’ free agent moves

Here is what some pundits in the national media are saying about how the Lakers have done in free agency.

The Los Angeles Lakers’ main objective heading into free agency this year was to retain as much of their core as possible. They achieved that goal by getting Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura and D’Angelo Russell to agree to new contracts without overpaying for them.

Guards Dennis Schroder and Lonnie Walker IV, both of whom played key roles throughout the season, left as free agents. But the Lakers may have found a replacement for Schroder by signing Gabe Vincent, who helped the Miami Heat reach the NBA Finals with some gritty play at both ends of the court.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles added wings Taurean Prince, who is considered a 3-and-D forward, and Cam Reddish, who is considered to have untapped potential. The center position remains a weakness, but the team agreed to terms with Jaxson Hayes, an athletic and energetic 6-foot-11 big man.

All in all, it has been a very solid free agency period for the Lakers so far. Here is what some pundits in the national media are saying about how the team has done.

Everyone made the same ‘King and Prince’ jokes after Taurean Prince joined LeBron James with Lakers

Alright, alright, everyone get their ‘King and Prince’ jokes in while they’re still funny.

The Los Angeles Lakers added a new forward and a whole bunch of dad jokes to their roster on Friday.

The team signed forward Taurean Prince, most recently of the Minnesota Timberwolves, to a 1-year deal, which pairs him with forward LeBron James.

As you have well now, people call James “the King,” and Prince is the new Laker’s last name. Los Angeles has officially added … a Prince to the King.

If you think this joke is royally good, then we’ve got you covered. Twitter immediately found the clever wordplay and ran with it in a nice bundle of tweets.

Will this joke get run into the ground? Probably, but it’s just too obvious to pass up right after news broke of Prince’s signing.

Yes, everyone made the same joke. Prepare yourself, because there’s going to be a lot of references to this combo once the Lakers season gets going in October.

Lakers to sign forward Taurean Prince

The Lakers have made a move that will bolster their wing and forward depth.

Free agency has started across the NBA, and the Los Angeles Lakers are hoping to run it back as much as possible while making at least one addition that will get them closer to another world championship.

One need they have had for a while is at least one true 3-and-D wing. They traded for forwards Rui Hachimura and Jarred Vanderbilt at midseason, which helped improve their depth at the forward positions and sparked their turnaround.

While Hachimura is a capable scorer and Vanderbilt is a defensive ace, neither is a great 3-point shooter. Although Hachimura has shown some promise guarding big men, he isn’t particularly effective guarding wings.

On Friday, the Lakers agreed to a one-year, $4.5 million deal with forward Taurean Prince, who could help fill that hole.

Prince, 29, stands 6-foot-7 and has a wingspan of nearly seven feet. He spent the last two seasons with the Minnesota Timberwolves, and this season he averaged 9.1 points in 22.1 minutes per game while shooting 46.7% overall and 38.1% from 3-point range.

Three free agency targets the Boston Celtics could consider

The Celtics, facing significant financial limitations, must make careful decisions in signing new players. 

The Boston Celtics are exploring potential free agent targets to bolster their roster this offseason, and NBA analysts are working overtime to try to get clues about who might be on the move — and who might want to be. Such is the case for co-host of the CLNS Media “A-List” podcast Gary Washburn, who came up with three potential options for the Celtics to consider: Derrick Rose, Cam Reddish, and Taurean Prince.

Rose still possesses the ability to make an impact on the court but remains injury prone with a controversial past. Reddish is a player with considerable potential, but he has yet to fully realize it. Prince is a versatile player who has the ability to knock down 3-point shots.

The Celtics, facing significant financial limitations, must make careful decisions in signing new players.

Check out the clip embedded above to hear what Washburn has to say about each of the three.

Listen to the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3F9DvjQ

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Five players to watch to use the Evan Fournier traded player exception on

Boston has become adept with the use of non-simultaneous trades, and have three of note to work with.

The Boston Celtics have become pioneers in the art of juggling traded player exceptions (TPEs) to maintain cap flexibility and manage their overall luxury tax burden, deftly using second-round draft picks to allow the franchise to add or deal away players

The team possesses three such TPEs of note on top of two smaller ones (for $500,000 from the Moses Brown trade and for $370,564 from the Jeff Teague trade). The smaller ones are unlikely to be used given that such exceptions are the space into which a team completes a non-simultaneous trade. That means any player incoming will need to make no more than $100,000 above the dollar amount in each TPE, which cannot be combined or added to otherwise.

Apart from those, Boston has TPEs for $17.1 million from the Evan Fournier trade, $9.7 million from the Tristan Thompson deal, and just over $5 million left from the Kemba Walker trade. They expire July 18, July 7, and May 17 respectively. Today, we’ll look at some of our favorite options the Celtics could trade for with the Fournier TPE.

James Harden trade: Grading all four teams in the blockbuster NBA deal

WOW.

Welp. It finally happened. James Harden is officially a Brooklyn Net.

We all knew this was coming sooner rather than later after Harden’s incendiary press conference from Tuesday night where he called out his teammate’s lack of talent.

But no one knew that the deal would be this bonkers. It took doing a four team deal with a whole bunch of draft picks changing hands and going to Houston for it to happen, but the deal is done, according to The Athletic’s Shams Charania.

The details are wild. The Rockets traded Harden and got back Brooklyn’s entire draft for potentially the next six years.

And all of the picks are unprotected.

Whew. That’s done. You know what’s next: Trade grades. Let’s jump into them.

Nets vs. Grizzlies: 3 things we learned from Brooklyn’s overtime loss

The Brooklyn Nets came close to surviving a Kevin Durant-Kyrie Irving rest day, but ultimately came up short.

No Kevin Durant. No Kyrie Irving. No Spencer Dinwiddie. No win for Brooklyn on Monday.

The Nets tried to survive without their two superstars — who were resting on the second day of Brooklyn’s back-to-back — and their jack-of-all-trades No. 2 guard, who appears to be done for 2020-21 with a partially torn ACL, but the Memphis Grizzlies managed to outlast Caris LeVert and company at Barclays Center on Monday. Even after Ja Morant went down with an ankle injury and couldn’t return, the Nets were the ones who had to force overtime — where they ultimately lost to the Grizzlies, 116-111.

Here are three things we learned from Brooklyn’s second loss in as many days.

Taurean Prince not fazed by his name appearing in trade rumors

Taurean Prince knows trades happen all the time in the NBA — after all, that’s how he wound up in a Brooklyn Nets uniform.

Right before the 2019-20 NBA season kicked off, Taurean Prince earned himself a two-year rookie-scale extension from the Nets after being traded to Brooklyn by the Atlanta Hawks over the summer.

Fast forward to the abbreviated offseason leading up to 2020-21 and Prince saw his name come up in trade rumors again.

But this time around, he wasn’t at all fazed — even though he’s where he wants to be right now.

“I’ve been in the league for five years, so…I mean, I don’t think, besides this team, I don’t think I’ve ever had the same teammates halfway through the season — on the second half after the first half,” Prince said on a Zoom call with reporters Thursday. “I’m kinda used to seeing new faces, and I’ve also been traded myself. The fear or that or that not wanting to happen, or however you wanna put it, is kinda gone because you’ve realized you can’t control that [after] you went through that before.”

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