Basketball

With Jazz, Talen Horton-Tucker has the perfect situation to thrive



For all but the most talented players in the NBA, finding the right situation is an essential ingredient to achieving professional success. It’s why we see late-career breakouts and players who thrive on one team before struggling on another. It’s why the idea of seeking out “second-draft” candidates — recent high draft picks who struggle in their first stop but could thrive on a team that fits their talents a bit better — is a thing.

Beyond situation, timing can be everything in a young player’s career. It’s not just finding the right team. It’s finding the right team at the right time. NBA careers are precarious because 60 new players are drafted every year, and an ever-expansive scouting apparatus travels worldwide to find potential diamonds in the rough. Sometimes, a guy is clearly gifted, but he’s just in the wrong spot at an important time of his career.

We’re about to find out if Talen Horton-Tucker is one of those players.

On Wednesday night, the Lakers finally struck the first and likely not last move to fix their mess of a roster around LeBron James and Anthony Davis, acquiring veteran guard and professional pest Patrick Beverley in a trade for Horton-Tucker and Stanley Johnson. It’s not quite your typical “prospects for production” trade because Horton-Tucker signed a medium-sized, post-rookie contract already, but it’s in that same spirit.

Horton-Tucker and Johnson each logged a lot of minutes last season, but only because they had to within the league’s worst wing rotation, not because either was effective in the role they were asked to play. Johnson’s skill level and athleticism is more limited than evaluators thought when he was selected in the top 10 of the 2015 NBA Draft, and he has never morphed into a reliable enough long-range shooter for teams to close out heavily on him. Horton-Tucker’s perimeter shot is similarly underdeveloped, and on top of that, the 21-year-old is not a reliable help defender at this point. Both lacked necessary role-player skills, making them especially poor fits with a team that had established stars and needed players to do the little things without the ball in their hands.

That’s where Beverley thrives. From 2015-16 to last season — a sample of over 1,500 3-point attempts — Beverley has made 38.5 percent of his 3s. He’s never been a wildly high-volume 3-point shooter, but he’s reliable enough that teams will at least close out on him. Despite what his new teammate Russell Westbrook might think, Beverley is, at the very least, an annoying on-ball defender known for holding his teammates accountable. Beverley also is an underrated decision-maker who has posted a 3.5-to-1.3 assist-to-turnover ratio in his career, so he can act as a secondary ballhandler next to LeBron in addition to confidently taking and making a high percentage of the open 3s James creates for him.

That last part can’t be understated. Last season, the Lakers’ front office assembled one of the worst shooting rosters in the league. Then, in part, they replaced the four players on the roster last season who took at least 200 3s and made at least 36 percent of them (Malik Monk, Carmelo Anthony, Avery Bradley and Wayne Ellington) with four players (Juan Toscano-Anderson, Lonnie Walker, Troy Brown and Thomas Bryant) who aren’t reliable long-range shooters at this stage of their careers. But Beverley is. He is the kind of player the Lakers need right now, and he came at a low enough cost for the Lakers to retain their precious draft capital. This exact deal wasn’t perfect for the Lakers, but something like it was necessary.

But just because Beverley is the most valuable player in the deal right now doesn’t mean he’s the most talented. That label is Horton-Tucker’s.

While Beverley makes more sense on Lakers, Horton-Tucker makes way more sense on a rebuilding Jazz team. NBA scouts have always been infatuated with Horton-Tucker because his skill set is just … different. There aren’t many comparables to a 6-foot-4 player with guard skills who also happens to weigh 235 pounds and has a 7-foot-1 wingspan. He’s a genuine playmaker with the ball in his hands, and he’s still incredibly young, not turning 22 until this November. Despite playing three NBA seasons, Horton-Tucker is younger than rookies-to-be Keegan Murray, Ochai Agbaji, MarJon Beauchamp, Andrew Nembhard and Christian Koloko.

But his game also has real flaws that show up most in high-leverage situations surrounded by established stars — the exact spot he was in with the Lakers. Any wing player sharing the court with a genius playmaker like LeBron will almost always be channeled into a 3-and-D role. Horton-Tucker has consistently struggled to shoot from deep, making just 27 percent from 3 in his NBA career after a 30.8 percent mark in his lone season at Iowa State. Teams sagged off Horton-Tucker to load up the paint against LeBron drives, displaying no semblance of fear that Horton-Tucker would hurt them on a kickout pass.

Here’s an example from a game in mid-January against Indiana. The Pacers hid Domantas Sabonis on Horton-Tucker, using their center to sag down on LeBron and cut off the driving angle to his right. LeBron threaded a genius backdoor pass to Austin Reaves, but Sabonis crept down as the ball got deflected. When Reaves recovered and hit a wide-open Horton-Tucker with a nice kickout pass, Sabonis decided he was good with Horton-Tucker taking that shot.

Back-breaking sequences that kneecap NBA half-court offenses.

And that’s before we shift to the other end. Then-Lakers coach Frank Vogel spoke often early in the season about wanting Horton-Tucker to become a defensive stopper using the combination of his frame and length, laying a number of difficult assignments at his feet to get him experience. It didn’t go well. While Horton-Tucker does have terrific strength and long arms, he’s also prone to getting blown by because he’s a bit heavy-footed with his thicker frame. Like most 21-year-olds, his rotational instincts aren’t close to innate yet. Though he makes some action plays such as deflections using his long arms, he has a ways to go before he consistently becomes a defensive difference-maker.

Horton-Tucker is hardly the first prospect who didn’t thrive next to LeBron because they couldn’t be effective without the ball in their hands. The Lakers couldn’t justify investing the on-court time to develop him because they’re under a time crunch to win now as LeBron turns 38 years old this season. Most 21-year-olds aren’t ready to be winning players at the NBA level. No players aged 21 or younger consistently earned minutes on last year’s four conference finalists, and only two more (Tyrese Maxey in Philadelphia and Ziaire Williams in Memphis) were fixtures in the rotations for one of the final eight postseason teams.

But just because Horton-Tucker wasn’t ready yet for a team that needs to win now doesn’t mean he’s not worth investing in for the future.

Here’s the thing: Horton-Tucker is a tremendous driver who can create with the basketball in his hands. He was at his best this past season in the rare instances when he got free rein to lead the Lakers offense, especially late in the season. He’s physical and uses his long strides to get into the paint and break down defenses once he gets an angle to attack, both out of spot-up situations when defenses are already tilted and on ball screens. He plays with a tremendous change of pace and with real shake, and he can throw live-dribble passes.

Here’s an example in what’s known as corner drift action out of a horns set (two players at the elbow extended, two in the corners). The play called for D.J. Augustin to shoot an open 3, but it’s predicated on Horton-Tucker’s ability to turn the corner on Rudy Gobert off a dribble-handoff, then throw a live-dribble right-handed whip pass on target to the corner. This is not an easy pass for even established pros to execute.

Horton-Tucker averaged nearly three assists with a 2-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio this past year, but that while sometimes playing on ball and more often operating off the ball in a pseudo 3-and-D role (without the 3 or the D). It was in the former role that you really saw flashes of passing brilliance.

This one is the best encapsulation of Horton-Tucker’s nascent playmaking skill. He recognized the mismatch he has on Oklahoma City Thunder wing Vit Krejci, but instead of  putting his head down to score, he used his pace and handle to break down Krejci, get into the paint and patiently wait for a teammates to get open. The ensuing pass was an off-target kickout to Wenyen Gabriel that ideally should be closer to the shooter’s pocket, but it resulted in a made 3 anyway. It was a good play with room for improvement, much like the Horton-Tucker experience in general.

The scoring numbers for Horton-Tucker show that he’s impressive in generating opportunities, but not all that good at converting them yet. He averaged 10.1 drives per 36 minutes, a number that saw him place 78th out of the 355 players league-wide to play at least 600 minutes last season. That was also the second-best mark on the Lakers, a team constricted by its cramped spacing — particularly when Horton-Tucker and Russell Westbrook shared the court. Among 180 players who logged at least 200 drives in more than 600 minutes, Horton-Tucker finished 76th in points per drive. These are solid numbers for a player this young.

The next step is to finish those plays more efficiently. Horton-Tucker made just 53.6 percent of his shots at the rim, according to Synergy Sports, which is a below-average number. He also only made his half-court pull-up jumpers at a 38.2 effective field goal percentage clip, another below-average mark that was 122nd-best out of the 141 players to take at least 100 such shots. He gets to his spots, but the end result isn’t there — yet.

The tape bears this out. Horton-Tucker clearly uses his mind creatively to get where he wants to go. He can leverage opponent with a series of mini spin-moves and pivots, and he knows how to use screens and re-screens to generate an extra little bit of space. He did all of those things on this play in a late-season game against Golden State, slaloming his way through screeners and around defenders to create room to get into the midrange area for a pull-up. His length allows him to extend his dribble out and use long strides on dribble-handoffs, which helps him get more downhill speed faster.

It’s also worth pointing out this last clip from late in the game, in which Horton-Tucker split the pick-and-roll defense from Andre Iguodala and Jordan Poole and spun off Draymond Green upon spotting the former Defensive Player of the Year as the help man at the rim. Then, Horton-Tucker used a little pivot, his length and the basket itself to shield off Green and finish with a scoop layup.

Horton-Tucker dropped 40 points in that game, showing why scouts remain intrigued even if he hasn’t been all that valuable early in his career. He’s not the most vertically explosive athlete in the world, but he has length and the makings of some impressive tools as a below-the-rim finisher that should develop nicely as he matures. Mix those with his passing ability and inherent creativity as a ballhandler, and the Jazz have a really intriguing player who’s still worth investment time. More on-ball reps combined with lower-level stakes will allow him to more gradually become the player he could be. The jumper will take time and reps, neither of which the Lakers have, especially if Westbrook remains on the roster.

But time and reps are exactly the qualities the Jazz are likely to possess moving forward, especially if a long-rumored Donovan Mitchell trade ever comes to fruition. Assuming the Jazz eventually move Mitchell, they’ll likely enter a full-scale rebuild, where wins and losses won’t be valued as much as player development. Horton-Tucker should, in that case, get a real opportunity to thrive with the ball in his hands and potentially create value both for himself and the Jazz. He’s not good enough to lead you to wins if he’s one of your primary on-ball options, but he is good enough to produce and improve if the Jazz give him a real chance. After that, all bets are off.

In that vein, Horton-Tucker remains something of a boom-or-bust prospect. He might turn into someone who can carry an offense for stretches. He also might never learn to shoot or finish efficiently enough. There’s a non-zero chance still that Horton-Tucker turns into a killer player in a mid-to-lower-tier international league like China’s that’s far below the NBA’s standard.

But his ceiling remains high enough to make him a worthwhile bet for a rebuilding team. At the end of the day, it’s hard to find big guards/wings who are this strong, can create off the bounce, make plays for their teammates and put pressure on the defense when they have the ball in their hands. If the Jazz are indeed hitting the reset button, they should be making upside swings like this. (The only potential issue is that Horton-Tucker blows up enough to persuade him to exercise his player option and hit free agency next summer, but that’s a good problem for later.)

Trading Horton-Tucker and Johnson for Beverley was necessary for the Lakers to compete in the final years of LeBron’s career. When you have one of the best players of all time, you make sacrifices to try to win a title before they age. But this is also a trade that has a chance to become the latest example of a team giving up on a young player before they have a chance to blossom.


Related reading

Harper: Grading the three-player Lakers-Jazz deal
Jones: After trade with Lakers, a Mitchell deal still looms for Jazz

(Photo: Mark J. Rebilas / USA Today)





READ NEWS SOURCE

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you accept our use of cookies.