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The Los Angeles Lakersannounced on Thursday that they have extended a qualifying offer to Talen Horton-Tucker, making him a restricted free agent. The team did not disclose how much that offer was, as per usual, but it is reportedly just $1.9 million, a small price to make it so that they can match any offer Horton-Tucker receives in free agency.
In short, it is now (essentially) up to the Lakers whether or not Horton-Tucker will remain with the team or leave. They can either.
Re-sign Horton-Tucker to a new contract
Match a contract offer he receives from another team to keep him
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As expected, former Baby Laker Jordan Clarkson has won the 2021 NBA Sixth Man of the Year award, with his current Utah Jazz teammate (and second-place finisher) Joe Ingles presenting it to him in a sweet moment on Monday night.
First of all, shouts to Jordan, arguably the biggest success story from the Lakers’ tanking era when one considers that the team nabbed him with the 46th overall pick in the 2014 NBA draft. He may have had to go to make room for LeBron James, but we’ll always remember his contributions, most notably his finish to the 2014-15 season, when he gave us something to actually watch and get excited about for a team that didn’t offer much in that department all year.
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Clint Frazier has run hot and cold at the plate so far this season mostly leaning toward the latter. After a good opening series, Frazier promptly fell into a deep slump for most of April, inspiring him to make several adjustments to his batting stance to help improve his timing and initiate his swing earlier. My fellow writer, Cooper Halpern, detailed how Frazier’s new foot placement and stride allowed him to accelerate his swing and correct the problem catching up to fastballs that he was experiencing earlier in the season.
Changing his approach and tweaking his mechanics allowed Frazier to be more productive at the very end of April, though he’s fallen to just 3-for-28 in the month of May. In order to become a reliable contributor in the Yankees’ lineup and reach a place of offensive consistency, Frazier needs to improve the quality of the contact he’s making with the ball. The drop in his average exit velocity from 2020 to 2021 is con
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Entering the Yankees’ 2021 season, an enormous “X-factor” was the question of whether or not shortstop Gleyber Torres would be able to improve his defense. After ranking 37
th out of 39 qualifiers at shortstop last season in Outs Above Average (OAA), Gleyber didn’t leave himself much room to go anywhere but up.
On most teams, this would be a concern defense at a premium defensive position always is but on the Yankees, this was an imposing issue. Re-signing DJ LeMahieu to a six-year contract essentially removed any parachute the Yankees had with Torres’ name on it should he fail to improve his glovework. Luke Voit and Gio Urshela aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, so LeMahieu isn’t going to first base or third base on a regular basis, and Giancarlo Stanton has the DH spot mostly blocked off to the group as well since the Yankees don’t seem to have much interest in using him in the outfield. There’s simply nowhere to go for Torres