Kyle Kuzma’s potential was on full display against the Rockets

Kyle Kuzma didn’t have hands at the end of his arms on Wednesday night in Houston. He had flamethrowers, specifically designed to do nothing but put the ball in the basket. He finished the game shooting 12-for-17 from the field and scored a career-high 38 points.

This was the fully-realized version of Kuzma this season — he knocked down his open jumpers and flashed just enough off-the-dribble skills to throw Houston’s matchups into question. The Rockets began the game with Ryan Anderson on him, but it was clear early in the first quarter that Anderson wouldn’t be up to the task. P.J. Tucker came on in relief and played 35 minutes before fouling out; all three of Tucker’s fouls in the third quarter were drawn by Kuzma.

The Lakers knew they were getting a guy capable of this sort of scoring outburst when they took him near the end of the first round in the 2017 NBA Draft, but nobody expected him to put it together this quickly. Kuzma is already well above average from an efficiency perspective, pushing his true shooting percentage above 60 percent with his strong performance against Houston.

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Kuzma gets more than half of his points in spot-up situations and getting out in transition, and that’s precisely what the Lakers need from him. Somebody has to hit the jumpers created by the attention Lonzo Ball and Brandon Ingram receive when they drive to the basket. Kuzma has stepped right into that role, bombing jumpers over closing defenders with picture-perfect form. He has no issues shooting over a smaller defender if teams try to put a guard on him and has even shown an ability to get into the post against switches, as he did a few times against the Rockets. While it doesn’t happen often, he has scored 25 points on 23 post-ups this season, a mark that is better than 87.5 percent of the league in that particular area.

The Lakers use him almost exclusively as a play finisher, but it doesn’t mean he can’t create for himself every so often.

Kuzma’s grab-and-go capability greatly benefits the Lakers transition offense, which ranks among the top in the league in overall frequency for the second year in a row. In the above clip, he picks up the defensive rebound and immediately pushes the ball down the court. His teammates know to run the floor for him — he’s good enough with the ball in his hands to make the right decision if they find an opening while the defense isn’t quite set. In this instance, he receives a quick ball screen from Larry Nance Jr., the defense steps under and he walks into a wide-open 3. There are a lot of stretch fours in the league, but there aren’t nearly as many who can do that.

Kuzma’s spot-up opportunities don’t always come on open jumpers. He’s taken significantly more guarded catch-and-shoot jumpers than unguarded, per Synergy, and cans them at almost exactly the same rate (39.1 percent on guarded shots versus 40.0 percent on unguarded). Part of what makes him such a valuable offensive player is his ability to shoot over his defender, using his 7-foot wingspan to make it impossible for opponents to block his shot.

What pushes him over the top is his ability to make even more difficult attempts, as he did against James Harden:

That’s an absurdly difficult shot you only see from the very best shooters in the world. Kuzma catches with Harden right in front of him and the ball on the left side of his body, but he swings the ball across into his shooting pocket and nails the jumper all in one motion, giving Harden no chance to block it.

Los Angeles will throw him a pick-and-roll every once in a while, but it’s not a huge part of his game. Creating for others still lags behind his own offense — he has more turnovers than assists on the season — although he’ll flash a nice passing ability once or twice a game. For his position and role, any amount of passing is just an added bonus he might be able to develop over the next few years.

All of the positives for Kuzma come of the offensive end because he’s an abjectly awful defender. The on/off stats tell the story for him: Los Angeles’ defense tanks from best-in-the-league levels down to below average when he enters the game.

So far, the added value he’s brought offensively hasn’t manifested itself into a positive net rating, but there’s still plenty of time for him to get better on that end. The athleticism and 7-foot wingspan that can make him such a matchup nightmare on offense give him the physical profile of an above-average defender at his position, but it hasn’t shown up on the court at all. The effort is rarely at the required level, and even when it is, his IQ on the defensive end lags behind where the Lakers would like it to be. He is just a rookie and has been shoved into a much larger role offensively than anybody would have envisioned during the draft, so there’s no doubt he’ll improve in the next few years, if only because it would be hard for him to be much worse.

Given his draft position and how much the Lakers are paying him for this year and the next three on his rookie scale contract, Kuzma has already produced at a level exceeding his standing coming into the season. He’s a high-level offensive player already as a rookie, capable of hitting a good percentage from beyond the arc and has just enough other skills to keep opponents honest when defending him.

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The defense is a major worry, but the tools are there for him to improve significantly in that area. At the very least, the Lakers have a solid rotation player capable of knocking down shots and spacing the floor for their primary attackers, and he’s as unstoppable as he was against the Rockets on Wednesday when he has it going.