Watch what kinds of drills Lakers put 2018 NBA draft prospects through
The Lakers need shooting, so testing 2018 NBA Draft prospects with these drills make sense.
The process through which mid-to-lower-tier NBA draft prospects have to go through can be quite arduous. They have only an hour or so to prove to teams what they have to offer all over a basketball court, and thanks to the Los Angeles Lakers, we have a brief glimpse as to what they put their 2018 NBA Draft hopefuls through.
Fair warning: These look tiring, so you might want to stretch before watching (Clips via Bill Oram of the Orange County Register and Spectrum SportsNet’s Mike Bresnahan):
Grayson Allen puts up a respectable 21 points in the Lakers “mentality drill” for draft hopefuls. pic.twitter.com/EIQfunnYZc
— Bill Oram (@billoram) May 25, 2018
In this “Lakers mentality drill,” demonstrated above by Duke’s Grayson Allen, prospects must take layups on each end of the court, floaters on each end, then spend the rest of the allotted 90 seconds dribbling from three-point line to three-point line, making as may as they can muster.
The drill forces guys to show off their speed (though it doesn’t look like Allen is in a full sprint here), ability to shoot off the dribble, endurance and, obviously, shooting.
For Allen specifically, it definitely looks like he prefers to shoot having had the ball in his left hand. This is nothing out of the ordinary at all. As I said earlier, he isn’t going full speed, but it does look like he is pretty adept at going straight up despite having his momentum carry him forward.
Here’s the next drill:
Duke’s Grayson Allen taking some threes in around-the-world portion of Lakers pre-draft workout. pic.twitter.com/l8RVdQMjVf
— Mike Bresnahan (@Mike_Bresnahan) May 25, 2018
This is more your typical three-point-shooting drill. Not much to analyze here seeing as it’s stand-still shooting from the second shot on from each spot, but catching and shooting has become one of the NBA’s most critical skills. The Lakers desperately need more players with this ability, so it makes sense they’d incorporate it heavily in their workouts.
As it stands, the Lakers really only have Josh Hart and Kyle Kuzma as reliable catch-and-shoot targets on next year’s roster. That number needs to increase by any means necessary.
And if the team liked what they saw today, most mock drafts still have Allen as available to be drafted by the Lakers with their 25th overall pick (via the Cleveland Cavaliers).