It was surely tough for Los Angeles Lakers fans to see Alex Caruso leave Hollywood, the place where he became some sort of an underground basketball deity in his own right. Los Angeles is always about the superstars, but it’s also a place that can make legends out of garden-variety players because that’s what Tinseltown does: amplify the good qualities just enough to shadow the flaws. With Caruso off to Windy City, the Lakers seem to have found another darling in the form of Mac McClung. You may remember him for his insane high school highlight reels or his short stint with the Georgetown Hoyas or his seasons with the Texas Tech Red Raiders.
Even if you haven’t seen McClung play before, chances are you have seen him on your Twitter timeline over the past few days, with many willingly anointing him as Alex Caruso’s heir apparent.
Just look at these tweets:
Alex Caruso ran so Mac McClung could fly
— Tate Frazier (@tatefrazier) August 4, 2021
https://twitter.com/MrSnugglePuggle/status/1425261069233053696
When the Lakers introduce Mac McClung as the new Alex Caruso pic.twitter.com/X72eZsKHGD
— Masta Red Snappa (@MastaRedSnappa) August 3, 2021
Lakers fans have every right to feel excited about Mac McClung even though he has not made it to the team’s big-league roster yet. McClung is on the Lakers’ payroll via a training camp deal (Exhibit 10) and if fans look at him as the next coming of Caruso, that's 100 percent fine, at least from a novelty standpoint. Whether McClung would be able to bring the same impact Caruso brought to the Lakers is another story, though.
From a pure basketball standpoint, here are three reasons why Mac McClung is not the next Alex Caruso.
3. “Alex, please break down the shot selections”
Most of the comparisons between Mac McClung and Alex Caruso begin and end with the combination of their being unassuming white guys and explosive hops that could bring the house down anytime on a fast-break opportunity. Outside of that, these are two players with different approaches on the way they hunt for baskets. Take for example their shot selection.
In the 2020-21 NBA season, Caruso averaged just 6.4 points per game, which is understandable because he’s someone coming off the bench and whose primary job was to facilitate, defend, and fill in whatever gap the Lakers need on a given situation. He’s basically a utility guy. That’s not how McClung operates. McClung is always on attack mode when he’s on the floor. He loves having the ball in his hands and picking his preferred spots on offense. He would soon learn to change that mentality in the NBA, just as Caruso did, but the question is will he be able to adapt to that shift in mindset as smoothly as the Bald Mamba had done in LA? Caruso thrived because he learned to embrace his new role, which fit his versatility so perfectly.
In the 2020-21 NBA season, Caruso only took 4.3 percent of his 2-point shots from the mid-range. McClung, in his last season in college, launched 37.9 percent of his field-goal shots through 2-point jumpers. With that volume, McClung managed to convert just 43.5 percent of those shots. In this regard, McClung is probably closer to Russell Westbrook than to Caruso.
It’s possible that McClung’s shot-making was more controlled and influenced by the system he was part of in Lubbock than Caruso’s was in the pros with the Lakers, but his current set of tools and decision-making don’t offer much in terms of his future fit in a Caruso role.
2. Clunky outside shot
Mac McClung also needs to polish his problematic outside shooting. He was just a 31.3 percent 3-point shooter in college. For comparison, Caruso shot 34.0 percent from deep in his four years at College Station, albeit on much fewer shot attempts. Cariso also drained over 40 percent of his 3-point shots in his last season in Purple & Gold threads.
In the Lakers’ 73-72 Summer League win over the Phoenix Suns, McClung hit a clutch basket but few probably remember that he went 2 of 9 from the field and 0 of 4 from behind the arc. He also finished with a team-low minus-9. It’s just one game and a drop in the bucket of McClung’s resume, but it is still pretty telling.
In the following game where the Lakers lost to the New York Knicks, 91-82, McClung shot 2 of 9 from the floor and 0 of 2 on 3-point attempts. He also ended up with a minus-11, second-worst on the team.
1. Free-throw generation
This is something subtle that Lakers fans should love about McClung. It’s his ability to parlay his athleticism and aggressiveness into freebies at the foul line. Mac McClung doesn’t come knocking at the door on offense. He blows it open without prior notice. He can catch defenses by surprise and his fearless attitude always end up with opposing defenders getting called for fouls.
Although McClung was only 318th in the nation in free-throw rate in 2020-21 NCAAB season, he was 170th in fouls drawn per 40 minutes, per KenPom. The disparity between the two stats could suggest that defenders had an extremely difficult time staying with McClung that they would rather foul him early than let him get an easy bucket.
On the other hand, Caruso’s free-throw rate last season was at just 29.8, which is almost exactly the same that he had (29.4) in his last year at Texas A&M.
There’s no stopping Mac McClung from becoming his own player in the NBA, free of the predetermined hype and of the Alex Caruso prototype people want him to fit in — as it should.
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