Los Angeles Lakers guard Talen Horton-Tucker came out with the performance of a lifetime on Sunday night, as he led L.A. to a blowout victory over cross-town rivals, the Los Angeles Clippers. The 20-year-old was so impressive, that people have started talking about an increased role for Horton-Tucker in the upcoming season — something that Lakers head coach Frank Vogel appears to be already thinking about.
After Horton-Tucker's 33-point, 10-rebound outburst against the Clippers, coach Vogel admitted that it would be hard for him to ignore such a stellar performance from his young shooting guard. The 47-year-old shot-caller, however, also went on to say that at this point, he's not ready to commit to anything just yet:
“We have a very deep team. No minutes are guaranteed,” Vogel said, via Dave McMenamin of ESPN. “He's going to keep playing at a high level, and that should push everybody else to stay playing at a high level. It does give us that luxury of having him carry the load some for some of our guys who played deep in the championship run last year and had a short offseason.”
Horton-Tucker's eyebrow-raising performance on Sunday follows Friday's 19-point outing (in another win against the Clippers). That's now back-to-back outstanding showings from the incoming second-year guard, and he's certainly proven that he deserves a more significant role for the team this coming season.
As coach Vogel said, however, the Lakers will be coming in to the 2020-21 campaign with a very deep squad, so for his part, Horton-Tucker just needs to continue playing hard and be ready once his number gets called.
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