Jake LaRavia is one of the newcomers to the Los Angeles Lakers this year, having signed with them in free agency on a two-year contract.
LaRavia wasn’t necessarily on the radar for Lakers fans in free agency as there was an assumption he would stay with the Sacramento Kings. However, Los Angeles managed to acquire him instead and he is set to serve a key role off the bench for head coach JJ Redick.
Through two preseason games, Los Angeles has opted to sit most of its regulars including LeBron James and Luka Doncic. LaRavia, meanwhile, played in both contests though the Lakers wound up losing to the Phoenix Suns and Golden State Warriors.
While the losses aren’t the results the team wants, LaRavia noted that they’re focused on getting a little bit better each day, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“I mean, we’re really still just focused on us right now, focused on getting better every day. JJ mentioned this term called ‘kaizen’ and it’s just getting 1% better each day and that goes along with just winning the day. We thought when we played Phoenix we didn’t and today we thought we did a good amount better. Obviously still not the result that we wanted, but we’re working in the right direction right now. There were a couple of spurts during the game where they made a lot of shots, we didn’t get a lot of stops. But for the most part I thought we competed, played physical.”
Preseason basketball is meant for teams to sort out things like the rotations and give players a chance to get valuable reps, so it’s never going to be clean and polished. For Los Angeles and LaRavia, it’s clear there is a lot of work to do from an Xs and Os standpoint but the can still improve on the things they can control like effort, energy and competitiveness.
Head coach JJ Redick showed he can get get through to the locker room and it seems like LaRavia and the group are heeding his message. Incremental improvements can go a long way over the course of a season, so it’ll be interesting to see how the Lakers look once the games start to matter.
Jake LaRavia praises Jarred Vanderbilt for shooting improvement
Jarred Vanderbilt has arguably been the Lakers’ best player through the early part of preseason, with one interesting subplot being his improved shooting form. Vanderbilt made his first 3-pointer of the preseason against the Warriors and beforehand, Jake LaRavia praised him for his shooting improvement.
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