LA Lakers sign Zach Auguste to their squad as power forward, as General Manager Mitch Kupchak announced on Monday, Aug. 29. Auguste will join other young players in Lakers under coach Luke Walton.
The 6'10'' forward went undrafted in NBA Draft 2016, but Lakers signed him to play in the 2016 NBA Summer League in Las Vegas. According to NBA.com, he averaged 5.3 points and 4.0 rebounds in 15:41 minutes per game in four games for Lakers.
Prior to become professional, he played at Notre Dame University in NCAA for four seasons,. In his senior year, he averaged 14.0 points, 10.7 rebounds, and 1.1 blocks per game in 2015-16 league.
Auguste will join other young players who will be developed as the new generation of Lakers after Kobe Bryant era. These new players were nicknamed 'The Breakfast Club' since their workouts usually take place in the morning. Coach Luke Walton admired their work ethic as he told Lakers Nation.
"Since I've been here our young guys have been phenomenal. They've been in that gym everyday, not because we make them come in, because they want to be in there. And you can already see some of the progress happening."
Coach Walton considered the importance of building a team culture and laying the foundation for the future Lakers. The mix of young talents and established veterans in current roster is a strong ingredients to build such culture. Young talents are important as Walton said.
"When you're developing young players I think having an environment that makes the players want to come in, makes the players want to get better, it is everything. Because it's a business now at this level for the most part and it's young players making millions of dollars and a lot of times they can come in and just get their shots up and do what they need to do and get outta there, and that's not what we want. We want them coming in, staying in, having fun, going at each other, making each other better."
For the next season Walton will focus on developing his young team. His goal is not the matter of wins and losses, but to build a foundation for solid team in the next seasons.