DiFrancesco, Scott and Kupchak on Randle, Clarkson and other topics

[Dennis_D]

In the last few days, there have been interviews with L.A.'s Strength and Conditioning Coach Tim DiFrancesco, Byron Scott and Mitch Kupchak. They each discuss Randle and Clarkson. They also discuss other topics.

Randle
Randle is very interesting topic to me because we haven't seen much of him since he was injured. This video of Randle working out before a game is the latest we have seen of Randle doing something on the basketball court. It's not nothing, but it's pretty close. On the other hand, the Lakers staff see him on the court probably almost every day. So I'm very interested in what the Lakers' staff has to say about Randle.

DiFrancesco
Trudell: In the case of Randle, do you have to specialize things that much more with Gary Vitti, the doctors and such to make sure he doesn’t get reinjured?
DiFrancesco: We’re looking to get him back to 5-on-5 based shape, and that’s far different from how we’d approach it with somebody else. He’s been cleared to do some light plyometric movement for a while. And it’s been aggressive in a training environment for us, where he’s been playing some controlled basketball on the court in 1-on-1 or 2-on-2 settings. He’s focusing on re-training the lower body to know how to produce and accept the load and push off aspect of jumping and landing. That has to slowly be built up. He can’t get cleared and then start doing some crazy drills. You lose some of the muscle connectivity when you’re in a boot for a while, so his process has more complexity to it than somebody who hasn’t been injured.

The goal is to get him ready to play in Summer League, but we don’t want to marry ourselves to that just in case he isn’t 100 percent ready for that. There certainly can’t be any rushing with him.

Trudell: We knew that Julius lost around 18 pounds by the end of the season. How?
DiFrancesco: He was in a boot for the tibia and for the foot for an extended period of time, so he wasn’t burning the calories that he normally would be when he could move freely. So he put on a bit of weight, but that was totally expected. When the boot was off, things changed. Performance enhancement is done in the weight room primarily, but body composition changes that also enhance your performance are done in the kitchen. If you’re going to lose some weight, you’re going to primarily do that in the kitchen. One of the things we did was go right to Whole Foods, and I asked Julius if he’d eat a big salad with lots of tasty but healthy things in it, if he knew what to look for, and he said yes. So we put that all together, and that was especially important for him from a bone-healing standpoint. You have to address guys’ diets to make sure they’re getting enough nutrient enrichment to help prevent issues with bone breaks. I was really impressed with the willingness of Julius to address his diet, among several other things like his activity, and the weight just started to fall off.

Trudell: In one sense, Randle’s getting hurt may have put him on this course to better nutrition far earlier than had he remained healthy. Is that possible?
DiFrancesco: I don’t see how it can’t be. Some guys will have that light switch come on eventually, but sometimes it takes something big to (elicit that change). Many guys have to learn the hard way. If you don’t have that nutrition change until you’re 25, you could have caused a lot of damage and just been getting away with it.

Trudell: Athletically, physically … how would you evaluate Randle moving forward after going through these injuries?
DiFrancesco: Being a little more lean for him is only going to help him, because his frame is robust no matter what. We can keep him lean, but he’s going to have big, giant hips and a big, solid upper body. That’s just how he’s put together. His body is some combination between Metta World Peace and Zach Randolph. If you picture Metta in his most athletic days, while Zach is just a big, solid guy out there. Julius being a little more lean without 10-15 extra pounds of non-functional body fat weight does not reduce his power and explosiveness at all. If anything, it helps.

Trudell: Are you seeing that explosiveness start to come back?
DiFrancesco: Yes. No question. And for a guy like him, with the ball in his hands once he’s cleared to do more work, the explosiveness is going to be even more obvious. We’re doing a lot of work to retrain his body to be able to handle the forces he’ll need, and you can already see it coming back in spurts.

Scott
Worthy: What is [Randle's] progress like and how do you see him joining up with the other younger guys like Clarkson
Scott: Like you say, I've been watching him the last two months, coming out running, jumping, shooting the ball, working on his post game. We were lucky enough to have you come in and work with him. The kid is hungry. He's going to be a big part of the future. I think the guy is multi-talented. He's got facets of his game that you can't teach a 6'9, 250 pound power forward. Brings the ball up court a lot like Blake Griffin. He can really handle the ball. He can really pass it. The one thing he's continually working on right now is that 15, 17 foot jump shot because if he's knocking that down on a consistent basis, he can be almost unguardable.

Kupchak
Kupchak: Julius Randle - knock on wood - he's been working out in our facility, playing 2-on-2 every day. He looks great. He's still getting the cobwebs off and we're hoping that he'll play in summer league. But he's essentially a rookie.

Judging remarks from the Lakers staff
Any comments you hear/read, you should always try to judge the amount of spin in the comments. Most of the time in the NBA, the staff is going to spin up their players. I have no idea if DiFrancesco will do that or not. My guess is that he is honest but selective, but I could be wrong. My impression of Byron is that his assessments are a little overstated. Kupchak underassesses players. For him to say that Randle looks great means to me that he looks GREAT.

Clarkson
DiFrancesco
Trudell: With Clarkson, Byron Scott said he’d like to see him put on a bit of weight, as with any rookie. What conversations do you have with Scott and Clarkson to turn that wish from the coach into results?
DiFrancesco: I try to have that conversation with both Byron and Mitch Kupchak, because I like to know what they’d like before I give a suggestion. They know what they need a player to do on the court far better than I do. So getting that information from them is important. I’ll note that Clarkson has actually gained 10 pounds of muscle since he walked into our doors. He came in around 179 pounds at Summer League, and he’s sitting around 189 now. He doesn’t have an ounce of fat on him; his body fat sits between 6 and 9 percent, which is more sophisticated than a traditional pinch test, where he’s probably be 5 percent. And you don’t really want to be much lower than that, because our body’s most efficient fuel source is fat.

Management wanted him to put on some muscle to better deal with bigger guards, and to act as body armor for him when he drives into the paint. We want Jordan to be the one delivering hits, not taking them on a slight frame. And we pushed around a lot of weight in here, a lot of sets and a lot of reps, and he put on the 10 pounds pretty quickly.

Trudell: People may not have noticed his growth in that way, because he didn’t really start playing noticeable minutes until January.
DiFrancesco: That’s right. He’d already added the lean mass by then. If you saw a picture of him with his shirt off now versus at Summer League, you can tell. And I think he’ll put on another eight to 10 pounds in the next couple of years, just because he loves to work. He’ll do whatever you ask of him, and that’s really going to be fun to watch. You can already see him being hard for other guards to keep up with in terms of speed and explosiveness in the stacked Western Conference. When he adds even a bit more mass to really make them feel him, I think that’s going to really help. And it’ll discourage any other guards that might want to post him up.

Scott
Worthy: Talk about [Clarkson's] progress and what you see in him in the future with this organization
Scott: The kid took some big time leaps and bounds. From day one to the end of the season, he grew tremendously. And showed a lot of people in this league that he can flat out play. Had to learn how to slow down and pace himself. He still has to get better on the defensive end. Got to get stronger - all those things we had to do as rookies as well. He has a big-time upside. I really believe that because he's so athletic and so quick. He can shoot the ball from distance. Now, it's just working on that mid-range game that - you know - two, three dribbles, pull up. A little bit like what Russell does. He comes straight at you and he can pull up on the drop of a dime.

Jordan is one of those kids that want to be good. He's in the gym constantly trying to get better as a basketball player. So next year, depending on what we do with everything, we're still looking for him to be a big part of what we do next year as well.

Kupchak
Interviewer: Jordan Clarkson named to the NBA's all-rookie first team. The first non-first rounder in four years to have that honor. Did you have any idea when you made that trade on draft day for #46 Jordan Clarkson that he could be this good right way?
Kupchak: [Doesn't answer question. Talks about how hard it was to buy the pick. The scouts rated him higher than where he was taken.]

Other players/topics
DiFrancesco
The one other topic he discussed that I found interesting was Ryan Kelly.

Trudell: Who’s been here with you the most so far?
DiFrancesco: Ryan Kelly has picked up right where he left off in the regular season. I keep a session tracker for how much guys work with me, which measures how many times a player does something with me to improve their body, be it a heavy lifting session or something (less intense). Ryan was on top of the board during the season, and sure enough, he’s been the first one in here in the offseason. He, in a short period of time, has already made a lot of progress.

Scott
He talked about what Nick has to do to make him happy.

Kupchak
This was a more informative interview than normal for Mitch, as he usually hedges everything he says so much that he says nothing.

Things I found interesting:
* He doesn't want to add the three draft picks to the roster as that would be too many rookies. There are lots of things he can do so that he doesn't wind up with three rookies on the roster in addition to Randle.
* For the #27 and #34 picks, Mitch will bring in 50-60 players.
* The scouting staff will ask Scott's opinion on who to draft to be nice, but they will probably ignore it.
* Clarkson will be playing in the summer league.
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[Chronicle]

Interesting how the nutrition improvement should be working for Randle.

And I'm looking forward to seeing Kelly's improvement next year. Hopefully he'll play in the summer league! I think this year is his last chance, at least with the Lakers.

DD, Why is it interesting that Clarkson will be in the summer league? The team will be great! Clarkson/Brown/Randle/Kelly/Towns (or Okafor) should be a great squad, backed up by a bunch of hopefuls! Can't wait
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Kobe

[Dennis_D]

[deal]

Things I found interesting:
* He doesn't want to add the three draft picks to the roster as that would be too many rookies. There are lots of things he can do so that he doesn't wind up with three rookies on the roster in addition to Randle.


So, basically we keep the 2nd pick and one of the 27th and or 34th. There are a lot of discussions going on regarding all 3 picks but it does not seem that's what's on Mitch's mind. I guess 3 guys would have to really blow him away for that to change...
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Lakers need to build a freaking team !

[yinoma2001]

Love hearing about Clarkson/Randle.
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From 2-10 to the Western Conference Finals

[misterrunon]

Take Okafor (I guess) and trade 27+34 to Toronto to draft Justin Anderson. I'd be happy with that kind of offseason.

[Dennis_D]

[City_Dawg]

[pio2u]

Good stuff, thanks for posting.

[DrumR]

Yeah we shouldn't assume Mitch is going to trade it. He's not one for the obvious. I think stashing a player in Europe should be a real option. Man...we have sooooo many options now. What a difference the lottery has made.

[K0BEE 2.0]

I think the whole consensus sense was that the lakers would try to try some of the draft picks to free up cap space or to get a veteran player...

[44-25]

Access Sportsnet: Randle looks slim shooting midrange jumpers.

We never got to see in-shape Randle last year due to injuries. He looks good. The jump shot looks good. Looking forward to good things to come from JR this next year...

[RCS926]

Mitch was on the herd this morning. It would be great if someone could recap the interview. I wasn't able to catch it.

[DrumR]

I'm just flashing back to all the times Mitch has actually publically discussed his plans and he's a tricky one. I would hope we could package a pick with Lin, Swaggy, or Hill for a better roster fit.

[Chronicle]

[yinoma2001]

^ This is why I've been saying the team won't bring in 6-8 1st/2nd year players. just too taxing on the coaching staff to teach young players how to play.

I fully expect 27/34 to be packaged to move up, or used to get rid of Young, or stash picks.
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From 2-10 to the Western Conference Finals

[44-25]

Old School - Laker Fan would wait for a week of promoting Jerry West would be on radio and the day would come and what did he say...

nothing. That's what he taught Mitch. keep all moves close to the vest.

[DrumR]

[dcarter4kobe]

I wouldn't be so quick to dump the latter picks when we still have to give up 2 first round picks over the next 4 years.

Need as many assets as possible & it's s good chance to get 2 more at 27/34
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"He's a Zen master, so he can speak to you, and he doesn't need a microphone; you can hear him in your head, 'Ron, don't shoot, don't shoot.' Whatever, pow, three. I love the Zen, though."

[yinoma2001]

[Dennis_D]

[Shaber]

A talented bunch of rookies willing to put in some work in every aspect – including nutrition.

What else would you want?

I just hope Black, Davis and the new guards of the Lakers will follow the example of Randle/Clarkson.

High hopes associate with that duo (soon to be trio).
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.

Lakers depth chart

PG Johnson / Goodrich
SG Bryant / West / Scott
SF Baylor / Worthy / Cooper
PF Mikkelsen / Hairston / McAdoo / Gasol
C Chamberlain / Abdul-Jabbar / O'Neal / Mikan

[MIMLaker]

[MIMLaker]

[Fastbreak32]