The Los Angeles Lakers used a first-round pick on Jalen Hood-Schifino back in the 2023 NBA Draft, but he has yet to establish himself as an NBA-caliber player.
He averaged just 1.6 points per game on 22.2 percent shooting from the field and 13.3 percent from 3-point range across 21 games played as a rookie, and he hasn’t appeared in any of Los Angeles’ six games thus far in the 2024-25 regular season.
With the Lakers recently deciding to decline Hood-Schifino’s third-year option, his value would appear to be low right now, but according to Jake Fischer of Bleacher Report, the Utah Jazz have expressed interest in the youngster.
“He will be playing in the G League this year, and he’ll have plenty of opportunity to showcase himself, both in the G League in general and at the G league showcase when the entire league descends upon Orlando in December,” Fischer said. “Atlanta had an interest in him in that talk with Dejounte Murray last year. Utah, I believe, has shown interest in him.”
What makes the timing of Fischer’s report especially interesting is the Lakers have been linked to Jazz big man Walker Kessler lately.
“It’s a really good question,” The Athletic’s Jovan Buha said when asked to name realistic trade targets for the Lakers ahead of the trade deadline. “I don’t — I think we need more time to kind of see which guys become available. I think Walker Kessler is a name that the Lakers have been interested in. That, I think, would make a lot of sense and would allow you to either start a two-big look or — probably more realistically — bring him off the bench and then play two-big shifts and then in certain matchups close with two bigs, him and A.D. (Anthony Davis) obviously.”
However, Sam Amick of The Athletic indicated that the Jazz wouldn’t be interested in trading Kessler to the Lakers for a trade package centered around guard D’Angelo Russell and draft capital, possibly complicating things.
“While our Jovan Buha recently reported the Lakers have interest in Kessler, a Jazz source indicated the possible framework of a deal — D’Angelo Russell and multiple first-round picks — would not be of interest,” Amick wrote. “As noted above, though, there could be other Lakers iterations that might be of more interest.”
While Hood-Schifino has underperformed in the NBA to this point, it’s too early in his career to label him as a draft bust. He’s still quite young, as he’s 21 years old and won’t turn 22 until the month of June.
He also showed plenty of promise across 15 regular-season games played with Los Angeles’ G League affiliate — the South Bay Lakers — during the 2023-24 season. Hood-Schifino averaged 22.0 points, 4.8 rebounds and 5.5 assists per contest. Furthermore, he knocked down 47.3 percent of his shots from the floor and 43.2 percent of his looks from deep.
Lakers fans should be excited about Fischer’s claim that the Jazz have shown interest in Hood-Schifino, as Los Angeles could potentially use him to sweeten the pot in a deal for Kessler.
If the Lakers were to acquire Kessler, he and Davis would seemingly make for quite the formidable defensive duo. The former is averaging 2.6 blocks per game this season — tied for the third-most of any player in the NBA right now — while the latter is averaging 2.0.
