After unimpactful rookie seasons with the Lakers, both Jalen Hood-Schifino and Maxwell Lewis are starting their sophomore years on the right foot.
It’s hard to imagine worse rookie seasons than the ones that both Jalen Hood-Schifino and Maxwell Lewis experienced last year. While neither was expected to be instant impact players, the pair were effectively non-factors on the season.
Brief and limited cameos for JHS were as much as the two saw in the way of rotation minutes during the season. Instead, much of their action came in the G League, especially as the season wore down.
As a result, throughout this offseason and summer, both have been viewed as likely nonfactors for next season. And that’s not an unfair assumption after such forgettable rookie campaigns.
However, while still very early and not even to training camp yet, the signs are positive for a bounceback second season. In his recent newsletter, Dan Woike of the LA Times said that both Lewis and JHS have had strong summers so far.
Both Hood-Schifino and Lewis, though, have earned positive reviews during this stage of the offseason. It’s especially encouraging for Hood-Schifino, a player mostly spoken about in the context of the three players picked behind him: Miami’s Jaime Jaquez Jr. at No. 18, Golden State’s Brandin Podziemski at 19, and Houston’s Cam Whitmore at 20.
This is particularly good news for JHS, who did not play in Summer League while still recovering from his back injury that required surgery and prematurely ended his rookie season.
On the topic of summer workouts, Woike revealed some interesting information about how workouts are going this season. While previous years saw workouts feature more individual skill work, things have changed this year.
Likely in line with the focus on player development by the franchise, Redick and the Lakers are focused on more live basketball, well in one-on-one or three-on-three settings.
Workouts have featured more live basketball — one on one and three on three — than past summers when the focus was more on individual, noncompetitive work.
This could be one step of the player development changes that Redick vowed to make when he took the job this summer, a change the organization has tied to the changing salary cap rules. But, honestly, the changes probably were overdue.
It’s a different approach to player development and might also explain at least one of the reasons that the team moved on from Phil Handy as an assistant coach. No matter that point, though, a good summer from JHS and Lewis is a huge positive and hopefully the sign of a soon-to-be great second season.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.
