The Los Angeles Lakers scouting department has been one of the best in the NBA the past several years and they may have struck gold again as they came away with two solid prospects in the 2023 NBA Draft.
The Lakers stood pat in the first round and took Jalen Hood-Schifino at No. 17, a great value get considering some draft analysts had him going in the lottery. However, Los Angeles might’ve gotten a steal in the second round when they were able to select Maxwell Lewis at No. 40 overall.
Earlier in the day, the Lakers moved up from No. 47 to No. 40 and Rob Pelinka revealed that Lewis was one of the team’s targets in that range in an appearance on ESPN’s ‘Mason & Ireland’:
“Yeah, so I guess for Lakers Nation and the avid ESPN listeners that break the game down one of the things that maybe on the outside don’t understand about a draft war room is we do a ton of work leading into draft night and it ends up with us doing a ranking with the scouts. We have a scouting department around 10 people led by our assistant general manager Jesse Buss, myself, other people in the front office and we rank all the draft prospects in tiers and it’s a tier system. And once we did that, we felt like there was a real sort of drop off talent after about pick 41 and we had 47.
“So based on our tier system, I got really active working the phone saying how he can move up to get talent in that next level tier. And we had two or three guys that were targets, Maxwell Lewis being one of them that were in that tier. So when you make a move like that, thankful for our ownership who was willing to invest in the extra cash to move up from 47 to 40. To be able to get a a player like Maxwell Lewis was a proof of concept and the strategy worked.”
Lewis has prototypical 3-and-D qualities and looks the part of someone that fill a role on the current roster. While he will likely spend most of the 2023-24 season getting reps in the G League, Lewis was a worthy gamble who could very well be a part of the team’s core going forward.
Cam Whitmore was considered at No. 17, but Jalen Hood-Schifino was considered surer bet
The Lakers had a tough decision on their hands when Cam Whitmore slid all the way down to No. 17. Whitemore was thought by some to be a top-five pick, but some medical concerns caused him to slip farther than anyone expected.
Los Angeles reportedly considered taking Whitmore, but ultimately felt that Hood-Schifino was the surer bet.
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