Lakers News: Frank Vogel believes JR Smith is a “great player” who can help the team

When the Los Angeles Lakers travel to Orlando this week, they will be taking two players who haven’t logged a single minute for them this season: Dion Waiters, who signed with the team in March, and JR Smith, who signed with the team. on Tuesday.

Waiters has played a total of 42 minutes this season, which obviously isn’t much, but it’s still more time than Smith has spent on an NBA court this season. In fact, Smith has not played an NBA basketball game since November 19, 2018. He was 33 at the time; He is now 34 and will be 35 before the season ends.

Fortunately for Smith, he doesn’t need to do much to impress because his reputation precedes him, for better or for worse. The Lakers also brought Smith to train in March, so they had an idea of ​​how much he had left in the tank before signing him.

Smith won’t have his first official practice with the Lakers until later this month, but his new head coach, Frank Vogel, is already confident he can contribute to the success the team has enjoyed this season.

“I still haven’t had a chance to work with JR,” Vogel said in a conference call with journalists on Wednesday. “I spoke to him, but it was just a kind of ‘welcome to the team’, kind of conversation. We will take care of all of this when you are fully acclimatized and can be with our team, particularly when we arrive in Orlando.

“In terms of what it brings: the experience factor. This guy is a great player. He has demonstrated this throughout his career. We know that you can help us. We almost added it earlier in the year when we added Dion Waiters, and now we have the luxury of having both. “

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Smith, in his 15 years in the NBA, has made the playoffs 11 times and the NBA Finals four times, most recently in 2018, when he infamously forgot how much time he had left on the clock and cost the Cavaliers a game. crucial along the way. Outside of that all-time mistake, Smith was an impactful player for Cleveland in the postseason, averaging 11.3 points per game with 41.2% shooting from the field, including 40.6% shooting from behind the arc, for four seasons.

In addition, Smith ranks sixth among active players on 3-point field goals scored. Only Stephen Curry, Kyle Korver, James Harden, Vince Carter and Jamal Crawford have scored triples than Smith. For his career, he has converted 37.3% of his 3-point attempts while averaging 5.3 attempts per game.

However, the question is not whether Smith was a good player; it is whether or not it still is, and if you will have enough time to adapt to your new environment to be productive. When it comes to the last topic, Vogel said he is not as concerned about Smith or Waiters.

“I think there will be plenty of time,” said Vogel. “We have a fairly simple system that we think can be learned fairly quickly, our boys learned it fairly quickly to start this season, and we hope it will be the same for Dion and JR.”

As confident as Vogel is in the skills of his new players, and the ability of his coaching staff to integrate them with the team, he understands that it will take more than Smith or Waiters to make up for the loss of Avery Bradley, who opted out of the restart of the season for personal reasons.

“We are not going to ask him to come in and be Avery Bradley,” Vogel said. “He will come in and be JR Smith. Simply fill that position rather than fill that role. Avery’s loss is obviously a huge loss for us, but we are a ‘next man’ team. JR will come in and help fill that gap, but we have many guys who can come in and do the same. “

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