Season Review: Jalen Hood-Schifino

Jalen Hood-Schifino’s rookie season showed flashes of promise in the G League, but was marred by missed games and cut short by back surgery. Will he get a shot at redemption with the Lakers next season?

Welcome to our Lakers Season Review Series! For the next several weeks, we’ll be writing columns every weekday, breaking down the biggest questions we have about every player on the Lakers roster. Today, we take a look at Jalen Hood-Schifino.

With the 17th pick in the 2023 NBA draft, the Lakers selected Jalen Hood-Schifino, a point guard out of Indiana University. The Big 10 Freshman of the Year was considered somewhat of a work-in-progress coming into the NBA after just one college season, but his combination of size (6’5”, 215 pounds), defensive potential and natural ability as a pick-and-roll player were enough for the Lakers to draft him even though they were clearly assembling a win-now roster around LeBron James and Anthony Davis.

Complicating things more was the presence of more experienced college prospects in Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Brandin Podziemski, who were selected in the picks directly following JHS. Over the next several seasons and, really, for the rest of their respective careers then, Hood-Schifino will be measured against both Jaquez and Podziemski — a comparison that did not go in his favor in year one after both played key rotation roles for the Heat and Warriors, respectively.

There is a long way to go in all these players' careers, however. And for a point guard like JHS, whose best skills will be deployed on the ball offensively and at the point of attack defensively, it could take more time to develop the leadership and stature those sorts of roles are doled out to, particularly on a team built around veterans.

In other words, there is more work to do and time required to do it. All JHS can do at this point is embrace that reality and get to it.

How was their season?

By almost any measure, Hood-Schifino had a subpar rookie season. He appeared in just 21 games for the Lakers and, in those contests, averaged just 5.1 minutes a night — essentially being relegated to garbage-time minutes only with just three of those appearances climbing into double-digit minutes.

In his 109 total minutes played, he made just 10 field goals, shot 22.2% from the field overall and 13.3% from behind the arc, hit just 60% of his 20 free throw attempts and had more turnovers (9) and personal fouls (13) than assists (8).

He also missed chunks of games with injuries both nagging and serious, ultimately getting season-ending surgery on his back — a lumbar microdiscectomy — in late March for a bulging disk that landed him on the injury list for weeks before he finally went under the knife.

On the flip side, if JHS’ time with the big club was not very good, he certainly showed real flashes in the G-League with the South Bay Lakers.

In 15 appearances with South Bay, Hood-Schifino averaged 22 points, 4.8 rebounds and 5.5 assists while playing 35.4 minutes a night. He was also pretty efficient while getting more chances with the ball, connecting on 47.3% of his shots overall and 43.2% on his shots behind the arc while hitting 80% of his free throws.

With JHS projected to make a full recovery from his surgery, the Lakers will clearly expect him to carry forward some of the confidence and offensive ability he showed in the G-League to his role with the big club.

Should the Lakers Bring Him Back?

Since JHS is under contract, this is a question about whether the Lakers should try to trade him after just one season. And, well, there are two schools of thought, here.

First, considering that Hood-Schifino was always going to take some time to develop, and coming onto a roster with so many capable ball handlers already, his learning curve was only going to be stretched out more. JHS should be viewed as a long-term investment.

So, giving him up in a trade, particularly when his value has surely been dented some after the season he just had, would be selling pretty low and under the worst circumstances imaginable for a player who, just 12 months ago, you firmly believed in enough to draft him 17th overall and in front of more win-now players.

On the other side, however, with the Lakers reportedly willing do whatever it takes to bring LeBron back and looking to add another playmaker via trade — to say nothing of potentially having any combination of D’Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves, and/or Gabe Vincent still on the roster — it does not look like there will be a huge amount of playing time available for JHS to get the needed reps to grow into the type of role he is best suited to play. He’s not yet an off-ball player and this team does not look positioned to give him reps over more seasoned players to refine those types of skills to have him better fit onto the roster.

So, the front office is facing a bit of a dilemma here. They have real reason to believe in his talent. But do they have the time to foster and develop it? And if the answer to that question is no, will they even get proper value? And if that answer is also no, is it still worth it? I understand that’s a lot of speculation and not a lot of positivity serving as the backdrop for it, but these will be real questions the Lakers are posed with this summer.

Will he return?

While I am not a gambling man, I’d bet JHS is back for a second season with the Lakers. Though there may not be the natural pathways to playing time available to him right now, a trade or two could open up more chances for a backup guard spot and give him a chance to show more of what he is capable of on the court, particularly on defense.

Further, as a value proposition, it does not really make sense for the Lakers to deal him unless it’s as part of a bigger trade in which the receiving team values him as a young talent who is just a year removed from being a mid-first rounder. And while that is certainly possible, I could easily see most teams looking at him as a throw in or even as small salary ballast, and the Lakers balking at that in favor of trying to throw in a different player to serve in that capacity.

Of course, if he does return, he will not only need to show he’s fully healthy but also that he’s ready to compete for a bigger role by playing more at the talent level he displayed with South Bay.

You can follow Darius on Twitter at @forumbluegold.