The Lakers are out of sight! Why is there no ball to play at 24-year-old Horton Tucker?

The free market has opened for nearly January, but an old player who is definitely not unfamiliar to Lakers fans is still ignored, and even rumors are rarely seen.

What's even more embarrassing is that this player is only 24 years old now, and he has not even reached the peak of a professional player's theoretical age.

Yes, we are talking about Holden Tucker.

As the second round pick in the 2019 class, Horton Tucker was very lucky. He followed the Lakers to win the championship in the park in the rookie season. However, he was only 19 years old at the time and was completely lucky to win the championship, and he didn't get many opportunities to play in both the regular season and the playoffs.

There is another news that is impressive after winning the championship. Since US law stipulates that alcohol cannot be drunk under the age of 20, when other Lakers players are celebrating with champagne, Horton Tucker can only drink orange juice like Rondo's son.

In the 2020-21 season, the defending champion Lakers suffered serious injuries, and the attendance rate of many main players in the team was not as expected. They were also eliminated early in the playoffs due to injuries and poor performance of core players.

Horton Tucker became the rare surprise of the Lakers this disappointing season. He got a lot of opportunities in his second grade, playing in a total of 65 games, averaging 20.1 minutes per game, handing over 9.0 points, 2.6 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.0 steals. Objectively speaking, there are shortcomings, such as poor offensive efficiency, shooting percentage of 45.8% and three-point shooting percentage of 28.2%.

But during that offseason, the Lakers still gave him a three-year, 30.78 million contract extension, and when renewing the contract, more Lakers fans thought that the contract was not expensive.

Here, there is one more thing.

In the 2021 offseason, Caruso also became a free agent. Because of Caruso's right to bird, the Lakers could theoretically keep Horton Tucker and Caruso at the same time, but due to salary pressure, the Lakers chose to keep only one.

At that time, Caruso only hoped to get a three-year and 30 million contract, but the Lakers were only willing to provide three-year and 21 million. In the end, Caruso joined the Bulls with four-year and 37 million.

I believe many people know what happened later. Caruso played better and better with the Bulls. Then he replaced Gideon to join the Thunder in the offseason last year. He then not only signed a four-year, 81.1 million yuan contract renewal in advance, but also helped the Thunder win this year's championship.

Back to Holden Tucker, as the one who stayed, his subsequent development can be said to be completely opposite to Caruso.

In the 2021-22 season, the Lakers formed the Sunset Red Lineup, which disappointed. They only won 33 regular season games in a season, not to mention the playoffs, they didn't even make the playoffs.

Horton Tucker, who earned an annual salary of tens of millions, did not perform well, averaged 25.2 minutes per game, scored 10.0 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.7 assists, shooting percentage of 41.6% and three-point shooting percentage of 26.9%.

Here, there is another thing.

Before the trading deadline, the Lakers discussed a deal with the Raptors about Lowry, but did not reach an agreement in the end because the Lakers refused to put Horton Tucker into the trade.

But funny, after the end of this season, the Lakers still sent Horton Tucker away, and the ones they exchanged were not as good as Lowry: the Lakers sent Horton Tucker and Stanley Johnson to the Jazz, but only Beverly was exchanged.

At this point, Horton Tucker's Lakers career officially ended, and the Lakers announced their failure in training in just one year. To this day, we can still see a lot of discussion. If Caruso was left behind at that time, maybe the Lakers would have been very different later.

Look at the three years after Horton Tucker left the Lakers:

—2022-23 season, averaging 10.7 points, 3.2 rebounds, 3.8 assists per game, 41.9%/28.6%/75.0% of the three shooting percentage, 50.8% of the real shooting percentage, 2}

—2023-24 season, averaging 10.1 points, 2.4 rebounds, 3.5 assists per game, 39.6%/33.0%/80.7% of the three shooting percentage, 50.8% of the real shooting percentage 50.3%

——In the 2024-25 season, he averaged 6.5 points, 1.7 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game, with a shooting percentage of 45.7%/33.6%/33.5% in three events, and a real shooting percentage of 56.7%

Among them, in the 2022-24 season, Horton Tucker played for the Jazz. During this period, the Jazz actually gave him a lot of opportunities, but his performance was not good enough, so the Jazz did not renew his contract in the summer of 2024.

Last season, Horton Tucker joined the Bulls with a minimum salary. At this time, he has become a marginal rotation, and averaged only 12.5 minutes of playing time.

The next time is this offseason. The free market is now open for nearly a month. Horton Tucker still has not found a job, and he is only 24 years old at this time.

The reason for this is nothing more than one reason: food.

The reason why the Lakers valued Horton Tucker in 2021 is because he is only 20 years old and has shown some potential on both ends of offense and defense - although Horton Tucker is only 1.93 meters tall, but his wingspan is 2.17 meters, and his body is very strong. At that time, he thought that if he could practice stable shooting, he would probably become a top 3D in the future.

However, the reality is cruel. Not only did Horton Tucker not only failed to make a shot, but he also ended in the basket and near-frame very badly (he really liked the counter-skirts), resulting in inefficient offense and not as good as he imagined.

Of course, it is not ruled out that there are still teams willing to try Holden Tucker this summer, but judging from the current free market situation, this possibility can be said to be very low, let alone get another tens of millions of contracts..

It can only be said that the Lakers did misunderstand it at that time - the Lakers only spent two years from the championship to the playoffs. There are many reasons. Renewing the contract and letting Caruso go is definitely one of them. Looking at the current situation of these two people, it is really sad.