Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak on Developing His Young Players: "Every Game, It's About Kobe"

The Los Angeles Lakers have three very important, young, franchise-cornerstone players in D'Angelo Russell, Julius Randle, and Jordan Clarkson.

Mitch Kupchak, I’m going to throw an idea out there — if you don’t like it, just throw it back right at me…

You ready? Here it goes…

You should have Byron Scott play them! Your thoughts?

It’s no secret that…

1. Kupchak and Head Coach Byron Scott have some sort of mandate re: their young players, because about two weeks ago: Scott yanked Russell and Randle out of the starting lineup due to “performance”.
2. This Lakers season is “all about Kobe” and his retirement victory lap around the NBA.

“Under normal circumstances [in a season like this], at some point, you would probably concentrate on just developing all your young players,” Kupchak told ESPN on Tuesday. “But we can’t do that right now.”

"“This [season] is really a justified farewell to perhaps the best player in franchise history. And, God willing, he’s going to want to play every game and he’s going to want to play a lot of minutes in every game, because that’s just the way he is. And as long as that continues, which it should, then that’s 30-35 minutes that you might give to a young player that you can’t. How do you get a feel for your team going forward when you know that your best player is not going to be there next year? So it’s really hard to go forward until he’s no longer here. That’s not a bad thing. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing at all. It’s something that I think is a good thing. In some regards, there’s a silver lining. Our younger players can make mistakes and it can kind of go under the radar because Kobe garnishes so much attention. Every game, it’s about Kobe. Even when he doesn’t play, it’s about Kobe. So in a lot of regards, there’s a silver lining that our guys can develop under the radar and maybe make a mistake or make two mistakes and it not be a big deal.”"

Ok whatever you say, dude…

We all know the Lakers are semi-tanking (lol jk they’re totally tanking) so that they hold on to their Top 3 protected first round pick in the upcoming 2016 Ben Simmons-a-palooza draft, but, someone needs to tell Mitch that this can still be accomplished by letting the young stars run AND Kobe can play as much as he wants.