Lakers News: Byron Scott Is Smart to Make Julius Randle’s Development a Priority

On a team that is not expected to be very good, the Los Angeles Lakers must focus on developing for the future. Fortunately, new head coach Byron Scott seems to understand where the priorities are.

In an interview with Mike Trudell of Lakers.com, the coach had a lot of good things to say about first-round pick Julius Randle:

I see a young man that's raw, but he has great feet and great quickness for his size, and he's strong as a bull. You can tell that he wants to get better. Next week we’ll have a better idea, because he’ll be in better shape and be able to work even harder. But I love those attributes, being strong, big and quick for his size. That’s a very good combination to have.

This is not the first time Scott had good things to say about the No. 7 overall pick in the 2014 draft, who he considered a steal:



He also compared him to Zach Randolph during an interview on The Dan Patrick Show:



However, the most important part of his talk with Trudell came when discussing playing time for the rookie, saying, "Julius will get plenty of chances to play a lot of minutes. We know he’s a rookie and needs to develop, and a lot of that will come in training camp and in practice. I think he’ll do just that." 



The problem many players have in their first season is simply getting onto the court. Last year's No. 1 overall pick, Anthony Bennett, came under a lot of scrutiny for his poor numbers, but a lot of that was due to only getting 12.8 minutes per game. With his numbers per 36 minutes, Bennett averaged a respectable 11.8 points and 8.4 rebounds.

Still, young prospects need playing time in order to improve. You can only learn so much in practice, but learning through mistakes can help you speed up your development. Not every rookie has that luxury, especially those on teams looking to contend for titles.<...

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