Los Angeles Lakers guard Jordan Clarkson is no Kevin Durant, but he will be one of the bigger names in this year’s free agency. He’s a talented, athletic guard, and he’s very young(23 years old, to be precise). Clarkson is confident that he won’t be seeing a change of scenery this offseason. From Mark Medina of the LA Daily News:
“I feel confident I’ll be back here. I want to be here,” Clarkson said. “I want to be one of those guys that is not bouncing around from team to team. I want to be somewhere where I can come home and leave my mark or legacy or somewhere I can call home. I feel like this is the place I can do that.”
Such loyalty is a rarity in the NBA, and the Lakers should be thankful that they’ve got such a young, talented player that wants to remain on their team.
In Clarkson’s second season with the Lakers, he averaged 15.5 points and four rebounds in 32.3 minutes per game, while shooting 43.3% from the field, 34.7% from beyond the arc, and 80.4% from the free throw line.
Clarkson’s major weakness this season was his defense, and head coach Byron Scott addressed that issue. From Medina once again:
“If we get the right players in here and if he doesn’t do it, he won’t play much,” Scott said of Clarkson. “It’s that simple.”
…
“He is too athletic and too quick to be that bad defensively,” Scott said. “Numbers from our analytical department don’t lie.”
Clarkson knows that his defense hasn’t been ideal, and is confident that it will be improved:
“I was horrible on the defensive end this year,” Clarkson said. “It’s somewhere I have to make strides.”
…
“I’ll put my hard hat on and get after it this summer. To be honest, I never worked on defense,” Clarkson said. “It’s one of those things you have to set your mind to do.”
Effort is half the battle when it comes to defense, and it sounds like Clarkson is willing to put in the work. Look for him to try harder on that end next season, probably in a Lakers jersey.
