The Los Angeles Lakers didn’t exactly make a big splash last offseason, and thus fans were left to hope that one of their seemingly underwhelming free-agent acquisitions would outperform.
Forward Troy Brown Jr., who had played four nondescript seasons to that point, was one of those free-agent acquisitions, and not many expected him to shine brightly.
But he carved out a definite spot in head coach Darvin Ham’s rotation and kept it for much of the season. Along the way, he stepped up his play as the season wore on, especially in one area where the team badly needed help all season long.
Brown’s regular season stats (in 24.5 minutes a game)
7.1 points
4.1 rebounds
1.3 assists
43.0 percent field-goal shooting
38.1 percent 3-point shooting
87.2 percent free throw shooting
Takeaways
Early in the season, Brown seemed to be no better than what is termed a “replacement player” by analytics geeks. He was a decent, but not a great, 3-point shooter, and although he had some nice moments defensively, nothing stood out about him on that end of the floor.
But afterwards, especially once the trade deadline passed and he was assured to finish the year with LA, he got very hot from downtown. In his last 29 regular season games, he made 42.9 percent of his attempts from downtown, which was much welcomed by a Lakers team that was starving for accurate marksmanship from that distance.
Unfortunately, once the playoffs began and Ham tightened his rotation, Brown’s playing time evaporated. His minutes per game gradually decreased with each round, to the point where he had four DNP-CDs in the Lakers’ last seven postseason games.
When he did get on the court in the playoffs, his hot shooting touch had deserted him. He converted a terrible 13.3 percent of his attempts from beyond the arc, which was likely a reason why he fell out of the rotation.
Still, Brown was certainly a reason the Lakers made it to the playoffs in the first place after many doubted they had a real chance of getting there.
Final grade: B-minus
Story originally appeared on LeBron Wire