The Los Angeles Lakers have announced their latest pre-draft workout group set to take place on Tuesday. The group is headlined by Purdue senior big man Trevion Williams, who helped lead the Boilermakers to the Sweet 16. Additionally, the group also includes Memphis’ Lester Quinones, Nebraska’s Trey McGowen, Oregon’s Will Richardson, San Jose State’s Omari Moore and Texas Southern’s Brison Gresham.
As it currently stands, the Lakers do not have a selection in the 2022 NBA Draft, but that has not stopped them from making a splash in the draft in previous seasons. Both Talen Horton-Tucker and Jordan Clarkson joined the Lakers via second-round draft picks that were purchased by the franchise in a year in which they did not originally have a selection.
These workouts also give the Lakers an opportunity to take a look at players who could very well not be drafted at all and thus could be prime candidates for the Lakers to invite to join their Summer League roster and potentially garner a two-way deal or training camp invite via an Exhibit 10 contract.
This is what the Lakers did with Austin Reaves last season and he eventually played his way to a standard contract before the season even began.
The top prospect within this group is the big man Williams, who currently projects as a late second-rounder. He averaged 12.0 points, 7.4 rebounds and 3.0 assists as a senior with Purdue and has some intriguing skills to build on as an above-average passer for a big, as well as an excellent rebounder.
Texas Southern’s Gresham is the other big man in the group who was a top-tier rim protector in college averaging 2.3 blocks per game in his last season and totaling 13 rebounds and six blocks in the Tigers’ First Four victory.
Quinones, McGowen, Richardson and Moore are all wings looking to show they can thrive as an ideal role player in the NBA. McGowen’s younger brother Bryce is also in this draft and the two played together with the Cornhuskers.
New Lakers coach Darvin Ham will choose his own coaching staff
As opposed to other pre-draft workout groups, the LLakers now have their new coach in place with former Milwaukee Bucks assistant Darvin Ham taking the reigns as the head man. Whether or not Ham will be running this workout is unclear as the new Lakers coach has plenty of things to get in order.
One of those will be assembling his coaching staff, which was a bit of a controversy with the Lakers’ previous hire as they insisted on Jason Kidd being part of Frank Vogel’s coaching staff. Ham reportedly will be given autonomy and pick his own coaching staff and is expected to meet with the current Lakers assistants soon.
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