Former Duke Blue Devil and lottery pick Cam Reddish has been a rumored target of the Los Angeles Lakers for the past two seasons. This summer though, it finally came to fruition with L.A. coming to terms with Reddish on a two-year contract with the second year being a player option.
The 6’8″ forward comes to the Lakers with an opportunity to compete for a championship, but also have a chance to solidify his standing in the league. Reddish has bounced around in his young career, now playing for his fourth team in five seasons, so the hope is he can stick with the Lakers and find a home.
Now with Christian Wood entering the fold, the bench for L.A. is deeper and will now become more vital for someone like Reddish to make a quick first impression in training camp and preseason. Regardless, this will be a beneficial situation for Reddish to see what is like to be a part of a contending team where he can learn from stars like LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
The forward will wear No. 5 for the Lakers despite wearing No. 21, 22 and 0 at his previous stops. Reddish shares the reasoning behind wearing No. 5, via Lakers:
“My true number is 22, I always grew up wearing number 22. But, I have a dog and his name is Five, so five it is.”
It’s a pretty simple but respectable reason for wearing No. 5 as pets mean a lot to those who have them in their lives. Many players have reasons behind the jersey numbers that they wear and it adds purpose and meaning whenever they step on the court.
Despite only being 24-years-old, those speculate that this season is a make or break for Reddish’s career and having that deeper meaning behind his jersey can add fuel to the fire to prove doubters wrong. In 20 games, starting 12 with the Portland Trail Blazers after the trade deadline, Reddish averaged 11 points, 2.9 rebounds, 1.9 assists and 1.2 steals on 44.3% from the field and 31.8% from 3.
The Pennsylvania native has the makings to be a highly coveted 3-and-D wing in the NBA, but he has to put it all together. Reddish is a career 32.2% shooter from downtown and a team like the Lakers needs spacing for James and Davis. Being a league-average or slightly above-average shooter can be instrumental to getting a consistent role this upcoming season.
Davis made it clear to organization that he doesn’t want to play as much center in regular season
Throughout his time in L.A., Davis has had a preference of playing power forward over center. However, in the past few seasons has played essentially all his minutes at center. It’s now being reported thathe’s making clear that he wants to not play as much center this upcoming season, which could have went into the decision to add Wood.
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