{"id":1906818,"date":"2026-04-28T10:00:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T07:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1906818"},"modified":"2026-04-28T10:00:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T07:00:27","slug":"luke-kennard-once-lit-up-ohio-now-hes-doing-it-for-lebron-james-lakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1906818","title":{"rendered":"Luke Kennard once lit up Ohio. Now he\u2019s doing it for LeBron James\u2019 Lakers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By the winter of 2015, the buzz had made it to Loveland, Ohio, where 13-year-old Jaxson Hayes knew he needed to see it for himself. Word of a high-school junior hanging 51 points on Edgewood, 45 on Valley View and 53 on Bellbrook had people talking, and Hayes and his friends wanted in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a really big deal,\u201d Hayes told The Athletic.<\/em><\/p>\n

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A group of Hayes\u2019 friends, AAU teammates, middle school friends and some basketball-crazy dads piled into cars and made the 40-minute drive to Franklin, squeezing shoulder-to-shoulder into sold-out gyms. Like so many others in the area, Hayes packed in to watch the smooth lefty from tiny Franklin High School chase down LeBron James\u2019 high school scoring marks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Luke Kennard was the main event. The star of \u201cLukeMania.\u201d The reason the Franklin Wildcats moved games to college arenas and traveled with police escorts to small-town gyms in southwest Ohio.<\/p>\n

\u201cLuke\u2019s games?\u201d Hayes remembered. \u201cOh my gosh, you couldn\u2019t stand.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NBA is filled with origin stories like this. So is the G League. So are leagues across European leagues and South America. Some players, like James, ride that momentum all the way to the top of the sport. Most, like Kennard, have to be OK with leaving all of that behind as they figure out how to survive.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe reality of 99 percent of NBA players is that they were the best player on their high school and AAU team and a star in college, or, you know, a star overseas, or whatever it may be,\u201d Los Angeles Lakers coach JJ Redick said, \u201cAnd you get to the NBA, and you got to be able to start anew.\u201d<\/p>\n

But circumstances have placed Kennard in a moment where the Lakers have needed him to be a little nostalgic. Injuries to Luka Don\u010di\u0107 and Austin Reaves created a void for a star ballhandler, a perimeter scorer, a playmaker. And the guy who filled it up in Franklin knew exactly what to do.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aIt\u2019s a big jump in intensity and the way I play, obviously, the minutes and being more involved in actions and all that,\u201d Kennard said. \u201cIt was a quick change, obviously. But just knowing, like I had an idea of what it was gonna be like.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lakers lead the Houston Rockets 3-1 in the first round of the playoffs, having survived the potentially season-altering injuries to Don\u010di\u0107 and Reaves, thanks in part to Kennard turning back the clock.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhen I\u2019m out there, I mean, I\u2019m playing within the flow of the game and stuff, but I\u2019m obviously doing things that I haven\u2019t done in the last few years, just turnaround shots, crazy shots sometimes,\u201d Kennard said. \u201cStuff I did back in high school. And I don\u2019t feel any pressure right now to do this. I\u2019m having a lot of fun, and I\u2019m enjoying it, and it\u2019s exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Back in Franklin, they\u2019ve noticed.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou look like you\u2019ve got on the red and black and No. 10 that\u2019s hanging in our rafters. You look like that guy. You look like that guy again,\u201d Brian Bales, Kennard\u2019s high school coach, texted him. \u201cWe always knew. I always knew what you could do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennard was good enough at Franklin to win Ohio Mr. Basketball twice. He passed James on the scoring list. He became a McDonald\u2019s All-American and a star by his sophomore year at Duke. But the NBA\u2019s been different, with Kennard becoming a role player with stints on five teams in nine years.<\/p>\n

Watching this stretch, it\u2019s fair to wonder where this version of Kennard has been. When the Detroit Pistons drafted him 12th in the 2017 NBA Draft, they certainly hoped they were getting more than a 3-point ace.<\/p>\n

\u201cComing out of high school to college, I wanted to think I can just do exactly what I was doing, but I knew that wasn\u2019t the case. And same with the NBA,\u201d Kennard told The Athletic<\/em>. \u00a0But yeah, I think it was definitely a challenge at first to figure out what I was going to be at each level. But then once you find it, you just gotta maximize it and try to do the best that you can at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennard\u2019s made 44.2 percent of his 3s since entering the league, the best percentage of any player over his nine seasons. This year, he shot 47.8 percent from deep while cruising past the 50\/40\/90 benchmarks in the three common shooting categories (53.3 field goal percentage, 47.8 3-point percentage and 91.3 free-throw percentage), all while playing a career-high 78 games.<\/p>\n

Whatever was asked of him, his early teammates noticed, was fine by him.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe\u2019s such a team guy, and he\u2019s such a \u2014 not a complainer, you know? He just goes out and plays and kind of accepts his role and does whatever. And coaches love that obviously,\u201d Blake Griffin, Kennard\u2019s teammate in Detroit, told The Athletic<\/em>. \u201cBut it also doesn\u2019t really showcase guys\u2019 skill sets. You know, that\u2019s why people s\u2014 on some random guy in the NBA. And it\u2019s like, \u2018Dude, you have no idea how good this guy is.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThis? It\u2019s not really surprising to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n Luke Kennard looks to attack during the 2015 McDonald\u2019s All-American Game in Chicago. (Jonathan Daniel \/ Getty Images)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

If there has been a critique of Kennard\u2019s game, it\u2019s that he might value efficiency too much, that a player with such a green light to launch should do it more regularly. He quieted that concern in the Lakers\u2019 first game after the Don\u010di\u0107 and Reaves injuries.<\/p>\n

Kennard shot 17 times and made only five, percentages be damned. His three-best assist totals of the regular season came in the first three games after the Lakers\u2019 start backcourt got injured.<\/p>\n

Griffin, now a broadcaster with Amazon Prime\u2019s NBA coverage, said his immediate thought after the injuries was about the opportunity Kennard would soon get.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, he\u2019s played that way more in his life than he has this way in the NBA. I\u2019m sure as a kid, he had the ball in his hand doing everything. So it\u2019s kind of amazing how comfortable guys can look when you give them the ball again,\u201d Griffin said. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to say it\u2019s easy to go out and get 20, but when you\u2019re getting that many shots and the ball is in your hand that much, you\u2019re gonna get assists, you\u2019re gonna get points. It\u2019s just about mitigating mistakes more so than it is going out and balling. It\u2019s so much more freeing and so easier to play that way.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question is, can you win that way, or can you help a team win that way? And he\u2019s obviously shown he\u2019s doing both.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while Kennard wasn\u2019t as sharp in the Lakers\u2019 two games in Houston, he\u2019s proven to be such a serious threat that he\u2019s commanded the Rockets\u2019 best defender, Amen Thompson, for nearly all his minutes.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou can just tell in his confidence,\u201d said Evan Crowe, Kennard\u2019s best friend. \u201cIf he gets a little bit of confidence going, there really isn\u2019t stopping him. And that\u2019s why I\u2019m not surprised that he\u2019s had multiple games in a row since he\u2019s taken this role. It hasn\u2019t been just a fluke where he went off for a big game and then back to his complementary role.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crowe, maybe better than anyone, knows the player Kennard was at Franklin. The two were teammates, with Crowe feasting on spot-up 3s as defenses swarmed Kennard and Division I basketball coaches watched in the stands.<\/p>\n

He still feels the weight of Kennard\u2019s stardom. Even Crowe\u2019s wife, Lillie, who attended a different area high school, went to Franklin High to watch Kennard play.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have an old picture of them there,\u201d Crowe said with a laugh. \u201cThat\u2019s how much impact it made. So to this day I\u2019ll be talking to work friends, and they\u2019re like, \u2018Oh, I definitely saw you play in high school because we used to go to those games.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

With Reaves seemingly close to a return, this brief chapter in Kennard\u2019s career may soon close. What the Lakers need for the rest of this season won\u2019t be the same if the team gets a little healthier. But Kennard seems cool with letting go of this slice of his past.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor sure. Look, I mean, I\u2019m also at a point in my career, I\u2019m nine years in, and I want to win, you know what I mean?\u201d Kennard said. \u201cSo I will do whatever it takes, and if that\u2019s shooting 17 times against Dallas or whoever and then shooting three or four and we win, it\u2019s kind of where we\u2019re at right now and where I\u2019m at.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By the winter of 2015, the buzz had made it to Loveland, Ohio, where 13-year-old Jaxson Hayes knew he needed to see it for himself. Word of a high-school junior hanging 51 points on Edgewood, 45 on Valley View and 53 on Bellbrook had people talking, and Hayes and his friends wanted in. \u201cThis was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-1906818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1906818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906818\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1906818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1906818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1906818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}