The Los Angeles Lakers welcomed their lone trade deadline acquisition to the lineup on Saturday, with sharpshooter Luke Kennard making his team debut. Kennard played 26 minutes off the bench, scoring 10 points on 4-of-7 from the field and 2-of-4 from three, doing what he does best next to LeBron James and a still-recovering Austin Reaves.
Kennard and James are likely to have a great rapport on the court, as the 41-year-old superstar has always been at his best when surrounded by shooting. Percentage-wise, nobody in the NBA shoots the ball better than Kennard. The two also have Ohio ties.
LeBron made a joke about their Ohio bond and other previous connections to the combo guard, while discussing how he thinks Kennard will have a positive impact on the Lakers.
“First of all, I haven’t even gotten to the point where I even confronted him about breaking my scoring record in Ohio, when he passed me,” James joked. “But he did play for my AAU team, so we kinda even.
“But I mean listen, he’s a really good basketball player. A lot of people kind of harp on his shooting obviously ’cause he shoots the ball so elite. But his playmaking ability as well. Him being able to crack the defense when they run him off the line. And he made some great spread out passes today. After he had just hit a 3 across from our bench. He had another one, by our bench and passed it up ’cause he saw Vando (Jarred Vanderbilt) underneath the hole, underneath the rim and Vando got the dunk, forced them [the Warriors] to call a timeout. So just a really good basketball player [that] we happen to have.”
LeBron has always appreciated smart and versatile players, and he clearly views Kennard as an intelligent and offensively versatile guy. Kennard showed it in his Lakers debut, doing a little bit of everything in a winning effort without Luka Doncic on the court.
The Lakers have still not been able to have Doncic, James and Reaves all on the floor at once for extended periods of time this season. But having another combo guard like Kennard helps to ease the blow, especially if he can be a willing shooter at 50% from distance.
Luke Kennard broke LeBron James’ Ohio scoring record
Kennard is from Middletown, Ohio and attended Franklin High School near Dayton. There, he broke James’ scoring record, leading to him being one of the highest-ranked prospects of his class coming out of high school and going to Duke University.
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