Average of 8.7 points! The Lakers might as well try to trade this old player, maybe there will be unexpected gains

In the Cavaliers in the 24-25 season, Jerome made 70 appearances and only 3 of them were the starters, but he could efficiently score 12.5 points in 19.9 minutes per game. Based on his outstanding performance, the season ended in the Best Sixth Man selection, second only to the Celtics' Prichard and the Pistons' Beasley.

After the NBA free agent market opened, the Grizzlies signed Ty Jerome for 28 million in three years.

Almost the same time, the Grizzlies sent Bain to the Magic to exchange for chips such as Pope, Cole Anthony and the first round.

Unlike Jerome, Pope's performance last season can be described as bad - averaging 8.6 points per game has a new low since the rookie season, and a 34.2% three-pointer rate has a new low since the 15-16 season, bringing a new low in the rookie season. In the end, the Magic was sent to the Grizzlies as a negative asset at the end of the season.

Lack of persuasive performance, coupled with a 2-year, 43 million contract, I think Pope is at the trading trough at this stage. In fact, the Grizzlies are also willing to trade the former when they have Jerome.

Based on this, the Lakers might as well try to trade Pope, the old player. I think there is a high probability that there will be unexpected gains.

Offensive end

The first thing to note is that in the Nuggets' two-season Pope's three-point shooting totaled 627 attempts accounted for 51.4% of the overall individual and 41.5% of the shooting rate. The reason why the three-point rate in the 24-25 season plummeted to 34.2% is very important: there is no Jokic in the Magic, or to be precise, a top organizer is missing.

Doncic looks like a small version of Jokic. In other words, it can "activate" Pope's external efficiency, and as mentioned earlier, three-pointers are Pope's main ending method. Being able to potentially activate the offensive end is one of them.

The defensive end

per game, reducing the opponent's shooting rate by 1.6 percentage points. Pope lacked persuasiveness on the offensive end in the 24-25 season, but he was still "stable" on the defensive end as always. In fact, the 1.6 defense of high-order data is 15th in the league, and the same position (scoring guard) is 3rd in the league.

Speaking of Pope, what is impressive is defense.

First of all, with the ability to compete with the same position, you can top the front line or even the inside line. Secondly, it has both confrontation and flexibility. Therefore, we can chase and defend "little defenders" such as Fox and Morant.

The defense is stable, this is the second one.

In summary, for the current stage, we can understand it as:

1. The offensive end is mainly based on three-point shooting but the efficiency is average;

2. The defensive end is very stable.

If the Lakers try to trade Pope, what they can bring to the team are:

First, combined with the defensive characteristics and past performance, even if Pope's defensive end has declined in the new season, the amplitude will not be too large. In other words, the Lakers have at least one reliable defender.

Secondly, as I said just now, it is not that Pope cannot score more than 40% + three-pointers, but the premise is that someone "feeds the cake". Whether in terms of characteristics or ability, Doncic has almost no gap in Jokic. Potentially, it can activate Pope's top three-point efficiency.

Therefore, "unexpected gain" can be understood as:

is quite different on the defensive end, because Doncic's existence is very expected to activate Pope's top three-point efficiency. In this way, the latter will return to the "3D" level of the Nuggets era, which is obviously very needed for the Lakers.

Finally, if Pelinka can exchange Vincent, Kleber and Kneckett for Pope, it will obviously improve the team's instant combat power.