Young NBA swingman Kyle Kuzma has had an interesting career so far. With the Lakers, in particular, he had a lot of ups and downs over the years, going from the ultimate high of winning a title to being traded after failing to live up to expectations.
While Kuz is no longer with the Purple and Gold, he did recently look back on his time there during an appearance on ‘The Draymond Green Show.’ There, he explained what it was like being a Laker and playing with LeBron during the 2020 title run.
“The average fan, they look at the sh*t on paper. Paper don’t tell the whole story. Chemistry and fit are the most important things to win a championship, right? You can put four All-Stars on a team, and on paper, it looks like, ‘Oh sh*t, they’re gonna win a championship.’ But how do you know? Is that third or fourth All-Star that you bring in, is he willing to now act like a fourth option? I play basketball to win and win games and whatever role I got thrust with, one, Imma do it. Because, one, I’m on a LeBron James team. Let’s keep it 100 right now. Like, you’re on that team, and you see that man and him being a professional. Like, you’re going to fall in line, because it’s a certain excellence standard, and you don’t want to let somebody down that care so much about winning. Like, you want to be part of that too.”
Kuz was speaking nothing but facts in that clip. I the outside looking in, it’s easy to take for granted how hard it is to win a championship or even make the playoffs in the NBA.
So when Kuz finally got the chance to close the deal in 2020, he gave everything he had on the court and made sure not to waste the opportunity. If only the same could be said for most of today’s young studs…
