The Los Angeles Lakers were crushed by the San Antonio Spurs 134-94 on Thursday night. It was the team’s largest-ever loss to San Antonio, and looking for positives to take away from such a beat down is like searching for treasure in a garbage dump.
For those willing to brave the scent and sift through the trash, however, there was at least one plus for the Lakers: the play of second-round pick Ivica Zubac. The 19-year old has played just 69 total minutes for the Lakers this season, and just over 14 of them came against San Antonio.
Zubac showed pretty much all of the flashes of promise the Lakers could have hoped for in his limited floor time, scoring eight points on 4-7 shooting to go with two rebounds, one assist, two steals, and one block.
The stats don’t fully reflect how good Zubac looked for the majority of his time on the floor, even with the caveats that he was playing garbage time minutes as an offensive focal point (mostly) against the Spurs’ bench.
Perhaps no play better exemplified the type of two-way value the most optimistic projections for Zubac describe than when he broke up a Spurs’ lob attempt on one end and ran the floor to make himself available for a dunk in transition on the other end:
While Zubac caught that pass, he will still need to work on handling feeds like this one from Russell out of the pick-and-roll if he wants to play more:
Zubac can definitely be a weapon out of that set though. On this pick-and-roll with Marcelo Huertas, not only did Zubac show off his soft touch with a nifty little floater, but he also was the catalyzed Huertas’ drive by flipping the direction of his screen to really nail Patty Mills:
He’s also happy to make the extra pass when he sees a defensive rotation coming as he rolls to the rim, in this case setting up a dunk for Thomas Robinson:
Zubac even demonstrated a fluid spin move out of the post to set up his first bucket:
Zubac has spoken often during his time with the Los Angeles D-Fenders of wanting to extend his range out to the three-point line. He didn’t bust out that particular wrinkle against San Antonio, but he did easily knock in an 18-footer:
At least one of Zubac’s teammates was impressed with what he saw:
Nick Young said Zubac was one of the “bright spots” tonight, said the league needs players like him w/ a big body & a soft touch (on SPSN)
— Serena Winters (@SerenaWinters) January 13, 2017
Zubac still is far from a perfect player. He is relatively foul-prone (committing 4.2 fouls per 36 minutes) and can suffer lapses defensively (as 19-year olds learning the toughest defensive position in the NBA are wont to do).
Those weaknesses aside, those around the Los Angeles D-Fenders (where Zubac has played most of his season) rave about how quickly he is making progress and how talented he is for his age.
Zubac’s confidence burns as bright as the flashes of game Young and others noticed.
“Every time I get my chance,” Zubac told Mark Medina of the Orange County Register following the game, “I’m going to be like this.”
How many more chances Zubac will get with the Lakers this season is the question. The team’s game against the Spurs was totally out of hand when Lakers head coach Luke Walton went to Zubac, and it’s unknown whether or not those are the only scenarios where the promising rookie will find himself on an NBA floor this season.
If the Lakers continue to fall out of the race for the eighth seed, though, it would seem to be a fair bet the team may look to find a larger on-court role for Zubac to alternate flashes of potential with taking his lumps as well so he can continue to develop into a contributor moving forward.
All stats per NBA.com. and Basketball-Reference.com. Harrison Faigen is co-host of the Locked on Lakers podcast (subscribe here, or listen to us talk Zubac/Spurs in our latest episode below), and you can follow him on Twitter at @hmfaigen: