The Lakers are tanking, but the irony of them benching the overpaid Timofey Mozgov to hand more minutes to rookie center Ivica Zubac is that Zubac is already better. I wasn’t big on the 7-foot-1 Croatian prior to the 2016 draft?—?he had poor jumper mechanics, an underwhelming defensive skill set, and a major-injury history. But he’s won me over. Zubac’s mechanics have smoothed out, and he’s comfortably hitting midrange jumpers out to 19 feet.

Zubac’s form isn’t the prettiest, and he’s still shooting only 57.9 percent from the line, but I feel a lot better about him extending his shot out to deep-2 or 3-point range than I did prior to the draft. He’s hit 13 of 22 catch-and-shoot jumpers, per Synergy. Finding some semblance of a jumper is important for a modern NBA big man who isn’t a dominant defender. Otherwise, he’s just a guy who scores dirty buckets inside:

Zubac is excellent at finding the blue sky underneath the rim. He has a soft touch with both hands, has light feet, and knows how to fake out defenders with pump-fakes. As the Lakers add more talent and their youth develops, Zubac should have even more space to score inside. He’s been better defensively, too. It seems like Zubac finds himself getting posterized on a near-nightly basis, but at least he’s putting himself in harm’s way and attempting to alter shots. I’ve never bought into the narrative that a player should feel shame or embarrassment when they get demolished by a dunk.
As good as Zubac has been over the past few weeks, there’s a reason he fell to 32nd in the draft, and it wasn’t just his talent or the fact that other players might’ve been better. It was the injury concern. Zubac suffered a navicular stress fracture in his foot in 2014?—?the Embiid injury?—?and then a knee sprain in 2015. We can only hope that Zubac stays healthy.

https://theringer.com/amp/p/46df7c76e2b2