By all accounts, former Indiana basketball guard Jalen Hood-Schifino is off to a great start in his NBA career with the amount of praise he has gotten since training camp started for the Los Angeles Lakers.
Just the other day, the former Hoosier guard Jalen Hood-Schifino received major props from Lakers teammates D’Angelo Russell and Austin Reaves, both who are in line to start in the backcourt and play prominent roles for the Lakers this season.
If that was not enough high praise for the Montverde Academy product, Lakers head coach Darvin Ham also gave Hood-Schfino great complements even calling him the ‘MVP’ of the team’s first day of training camp.
“Yeah he was phenomenal….I don’t think anyone would disagree if I called him the MVP of day one,” Lakers head coach Darvin Ham said when speaking to the media about former Indiana basketball guard Jalen Hood-Schifino. “He was very solid. We are really, really excited about him.”
From watching Jalen Hood-Schifino play for Indiana basketball last season, it was pretty obvious to tell that he did a lot his ‘talking’ on the floor with his game. His emotions never got too high or too low…he was just always calm and composed.
Now that he is in the NBA, he will have no choice but to be a little more aggressive when it comes to leading with his voice. At the lead guard the position that Hood-Schifino will likely be the majority of his NBA career, it will be his job to command the attention of his teammates and make sure everyone is on the same page.
In order to get Hood-Schifino more talkative, Davin Ham gave him some advice on how to fix that.
“Jalen is really soft spoken,” Ham added. “I said kid you are going to be a 15-year point guard in this league with the skillset you have, with the way you are going to get better and how young you are…you gotta start screaming. Scream in the house when you are by yourself, just start screaming and yelling for no reason…you are going to have to be the one to keep you teammates organized and they always gotta understand what we are doing out there.
It is safe to say that the Lakers organization as a whole is extremely excited about what Hood-Schifino can bring to the team in the long term. As the Lakers look towards the future after the LeBron James era comes to an end, Hood-Schfino could be one of the young, foundational pieces.
“He just went out there and played,” said Ham. “Played with a lot of moxie…he plays with stability. You can’t speed him up, you can’t slow him down. He’s a fierce competitor in a silent way. You are not going to be able to do whatever you want with him. He is going to guard the hell out of the ball.”
For the Los Angeles Lakers summer team, Hood-Schifino averaged 13.7 points, 4.2 rebounds, 3.3 assists, and 1.3 steals per game in six appearances in the Sacramento and Las Vegas. He shot 34.0% (32-of-94) from the floor, 21.7% (5-of-23) from the 3-point line, and 56.5% (13-of-23) from the free throw line.
In his lone season playing for Mike Woodson and Indiana, Hood-Schifino averaged 13.5 points, 4.1 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game. He was the first Indiana basketball player to have multiple 30+ point games in his first season since Eric Gordon. His 35 points against Purdue were the second-most points by an Indiana freshman. It was also the first time in the last 25 years for a freshman to score at least 35 points in a road victory over an AP top-5 team.
He was also named Big Ten Freshman of the Year.
Watch full interview and highlights below:
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