Neither Ryan Kelly nor Tarik Black have seen any significant playing time for the Los Angeles Lakers since being recalled from their last stint with the Lakers' development league club, the Los Angeles D-Fenders. To keep the two frontcourt players fresh and get them some game action, the Lakers front office sent the pair back down the D-League for the D-Fenders' Friday night game against the Idaho Stampede.
Kelly once again thoroughly dominated D-League competition, scoring 28 points on 9-15 shooting while also snaring 12 rebounds against the Stampede. The stretch four also knocked down four of his seven three-point attempts. Tarik Black matched Kelly's 12 boards and scored 17 points of his own. Both players played 35 minutes in the D-Fenders' win, and if Black is feeling healthy enough to run around on his reportedly injured ankle for that amount of time in the go-go D-League, there is really no reason he should not be getting a shot in the Lakers' current rotation as a backup to Roy Hibbert.
You can watch full highlights of Black and Kelly's performances below:
All stats per dleague.nba.com/