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JJ Redick: One two-way Lakers player has been 'fantastic' lately
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- JJ Redick: One two-way Lakers player has been 'fantastic' lately
Now that the NBA has, for all intents and purposes, a hard salary cap, teams have to hit on their draft picks and make good use of players who are on rookie or inexpensive contracts. This extends over to players who are on two-way contracts.
The Los Angeles Lakers have found a few gems on two-way contracts over the years, starting with Alex Caruso and continuing with Austin Reaves and Jordan Goodwin. Last season, Chris Mañon, a guard who went undrafted in 2025 out of Vanderbilt University, started to impress observers with his tenacious defense, and he continued to do so during summer league play this July.
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Coach JJ Redick said on Saturday that the Lakers' three two-way contract players -- Mañon, Arthur Kaluma and AK Okereke -- looked good, but he specifically singled out Mañon, via Silver Screen and Roll .
"Particularly the first two days, I thought both [Kaluma and Okereke] were (a) really physical part of that wing group," Redick said after practice on Saturday. "Chris on Thursday and Chris again today in live play — he's gotten some exposure with the purple team because we wanted to have scoring balance on both sides — he's been fantastic the last two days in live play and scrimmages."
Mañon appeared in nine games last season with the Lakers, and with their G League affiliate, he averaged 10.3 points, 5.6 rebounds and 2.2 assists in 25.2 minutes during the regular season while registering 14.8 points, 6.8 rebounds and 3.0 assists in 31.1 minutes in the Tip-Off Tournament. He was named to the All-NBA G League Defensive Team and finished second in the voting for the G League Defensive Player of the Year.
In this year's summer league, Mañon averaged 11.4 points on 43.2% field-goal shooting and 30% from 3-point range, 7.2 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.4 steals per contest. The 6-foot-4 guard isn't an offensive threat, but he's a defensive pest who isn't afraid to hustle for loose balls.
If he starts hitting consistently from 3-point range and finds other ways to contribute on offense, perhaps he can establish himself as a poor man's version of Caruso and fight for a standard contract at some point.
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This article originally appeared on Lakers Wire: JJ Redick: One two-way Lakers player has been 'fantastic' lately
