The 2018-19 Lakers didn’t have a clear second scoring option behind LeBron James. Brandon Ingram and Kyle Kuzma shared that responsibility as options 2A and 2B on a mismatched roster comprising unreliable youth and outcasted veterans on one-year contracts.

Enter Anthony Davis.

The scoring hierarchy of the Lakers was evident the moment they traded for Davis in June. The most successful LeBron teams have featured two superstars who were better than anyone the opponent had on most nights and were surrounded by a competent core of role players. What the Lakers lack is a dependable third option like Chris Bosh or Kevin Love — someone who can push them over the top against other two-star teams with viable supporting casts.

Both Bosh and Love were established NBA All-Stars by the time they joined forces with LeBron, and their struggles to acclimate to their new roles are well-documented. If they had difficulty adjusting to life as a third option, then how hard is it for Kuzma? Davis is a more complementary fit alongside LeBron than either Dwyane Wade or Kyrie Irving were, so maybe the Lakers don’t need a third All-Star. But they do need an extra gear that they can hit when opposing duos play the Lakers’ stars to a stalemate. Kuzma is the only player on the team who’s even capable of that.

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Kuzma is averaging just 7.7 points per game since his eye injury on November 19. The player who would regularly get an adoring Staples Center crowd to rain “Kuuuuuuuz!” chants down on him during his first two seasons has only shown up for brief periods.

Kuzma’s game has taken a necessary turn toward serious. He’s still making mistakes defensively, but he’s more engaged than he’s ever been which is the first step toward improvement. Offensively, he’s going out of his way to make the right play and show that he can be a crucial contributor to a championship roster when most players his age can’t.

The first step in that process was addressing his jump shot. His 3-point percentage dipped from 36.6 percent as a rookie to 30.3 percent last season, an unacceptable mark for a player who would be asked to complement James and Davis. At Team USA camp in August, Kuzma talked about what he focused on while trying to improve his shot.

“Keeping it high, using my wrists and be strong flicking it, use my legs,” Kuzma told Kyle Goon of the Orange County Register. “I don’t want to be overthinking it. Just those three things and trust the process.”


He has been able to maintain a relatively consistent shooting stroke this season while keeping his set point high and his sight lines unobstructed. He has best applied those mechanics when he is wide open, ranking in the 90th percentile in the NBA on unguarded jumpers while generating 1.50 points per possession. That’s a stark contrast from last season when his shooting form varied greatly and he scored just 0.96 PPP on unguarded jumpers.

Kuzma hasn’t been able to get that to translate to jumpers on the move.


Kuzma tends to under-pivot when he comes off of a screen while moving right, putting his shooting (right) foot slightly behind his pivot (left) foot, and he frequently misses short or to the right as a result. He kicks out his shooting foot to square his shoulders to the basket in mid-air — a common technique when squaring up on a mid-range jumper — but that’s a difficult shot from behind the arc.

As a result, he has shot just 3-for-14 on jumpers while moving to his right this season. He’d be wise to pay a little more attention to his footwork early in his jumper, so he’s not compensating at the end of it.


He’s more comfortable when he can hop into his shot, but a one-two step is usually the more appropriate footwork when coming off of a screen.


He’s as good as anyone in the NBA on runners and floaters, ranking in the 98th percentile on those shots this year after finishing in the 94th percentile last season. That’s a remarkable weapon in a league where so many defenses allow those looks while trying to defend against open 3-pointers and shots at the rim. But he’s having difficulty getting those attempts as teams increasingly dare him to shoot the 3 by going under screens.

Kuzma seemed to understand before the season that shooting on the move was the key to reaching his ceiling.

“I kind of always had moves, but I didn’t really know how to shoot out of those moves,” Kuzma said before the season. “So just learning those techniques, (next year) should be fun.”


Kuzma’s lack of success as a shooter on the move has led to a passive approach, which runs counter to his natural instincts. Solomon Hill goes under this stagger screen, but Kuzma doesn’t even glance at the basket despite having a clean look. He can’t shoot a runner or floater if his defender is fully committed to taking that away, so making defenders honor his jump shot in these situations is a lynchpin that would allow him to access the best parts of his game. He’s one of the few players in the NBA who are more efficient on those runners and floaters than he is on a relatively open 3 off of a screen, and he will continue to see this coverage until he forces defenses to respect him.

He needs to take that shot. I don’t care if he misses it 20 times in a row — he needs to be a threat. His attempts to fit in on a championship contender are commendable, but he’s a bucket-getter at his very core and the best version of this Lakers team features him as exactly that. Not even looking at the basket is too far removed from his natural inclinations, and it’s not the approach that put him in the position to be the third scoring option on this team in the first place.

Frank Vogel can do more to help Kuzma find his way. The Lakers don’t run many set plays, choosing instead to give the ball to their superstars and let their gravity create advantages. It’s difficult to argue with the results when LeBron is on the floor, but that hasn’t been the case with Davis at the hub of the Lakers’ offense while James is on the bench. Those are the moments where Vogel needs to be more deliberate with how he uses Kuzma.

Most of Kuzma’s off-screen looks have come from stagger screens, which is illustrated in the video against Memphis. It’s a perfectly viable set but also one of the only plays in which Kuzma’s off-ball movement is an intentional component of the Lakers’ scheme. That’s not enough.

He’s also played just 83 of his 360 minutes this season alongside both LeBron and A.D. That’s not enough either, especially considering the types of looks Kuzma has been getting. His passivity and Vogel’s lack of intentionality in getting him open looks have combined a third-option approach with a lot of second-option minutes.


Kuzma can provide some degree of playmaking along with his scoring chops. He’s the only player on the Lakers aside from their stars who’s a dual threat, but his assists are way down from last year — 1.7 assists per 100 possessions vs. 3.6 last season — as Davis and Rajon Rondo have dominated the ball in the second-unit lineups that Kuzma often plays in. His ability to score without occupying the ball is a tremendous asset for a superstar-driven team, but the Lakers have taken that to an unproductive extreme as Kuzma can go several minutes without a touch. That makes it very difficult for a scorer to establish a rhythm.

The Lakers may not need Kuzma to elevate his play to the All-Star level of Bosh or Love, but he is deeply important to their ability to hit an extra offensive gear. It’s crucial that Kuzma embraces his inner bucket-getter while Vogel explores different ways to put him in a position to succeed. The investment will be worth it.

(Top photo of Kyle Kuzma: Katharine Lotze / Getty Images)