On October 27, Beijing time, the NBA regular season continued, and the Lakers ushered in the fourth game of the regular season of the season, against the Spurs of San Antonio.
After four quarters of play and overtime competition, the Lakers finally defeated the Spurs 125:121, ushering in two consecutive wins after two consecutive losses in the regular season.
In this game, The Lakers' core player James was unable to play in this game due to twisting his ankle in the previous game. Lakers coach Vogel put new signing Munch in the starting second position, allowing Bazemore to replace James in the third position.
So the protagonist we are going to talk about today came out, yes, it was Malik Munch!
He was selected by the Hornets with the 11th pick in the first round of the 2017 NBA Draft, and then played for the Hornets in the Eastern Conference. During the NBA's regular season last season, Munch averaged 21.3 minutes per game, averaging 10.3 points, 2.9 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 0.5 steals, 0.3 blocks, shooting 43.4 percent from the field, 28.4 percent from three-point range, and 82.0 percent from the free throw line.
However, after entering the NBA, Munch did not enter the Hornets rotation. So of course Munch did not play the level of the lottery show, once by the Hornets fans as the "king of the wave", the performance is extremely unstable, sometimes a game can be 7 of 10, but sometimes can be 10 shots 1. After the Hornets got the "three-goal" Ball, plus Rozier, the Hornets no longer had a place for Munch.
After ending his four-year rookie contract as a Hornets player, Malik Munch decided to give up his annual salary of 10 million yuan and switch to the Los Angeles Lakers, which made the Lakers happy, and finally the Lakers signed a $1.79 million a year base salary contract with Munch, but don't forget that Munch is only 23 years old!
Leaving aside Munch's highlight performance in the preseason, in terms of Munch's first four regular season games with the Lakers, the Lakers definitely picked up a treasure by signing Munch!
In terms of the first four regular season statistics, Munch averaged 10.5 points, 1.8 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game, although the data is not outstanding, but the shooting rate of 42.9% of the three-point shooting rate and 43.8% of the combined shooting rate are the highest values of his career so far, and the Lakers on the bench provide a stable firepower output!
Take today's game, Lakers player Malik Munch started, the whole game he played 38 minutes, 6 of 15 three-pointers 10 4, cut 17 points and 3 assists. It is worth mentioning that his plus-minus is as high as +31, which is the highest in the whole game.
Munch, who was mentioned as the starter, hit a three-pointer after the opening and scored inside, showing good offensive firepower.
Munch's brightest moment of the game came from the decisive moment. With 1:02 left in the final quarter, the Lakers trailed 111-112, and Munch took two steps from beyond the three-point line to hit the shot directly, helping the Lakers to overtake the score. And this three-pointer also almost became a goal for Munch to kill the Spurs. In the final moments, the Spurs made a foul and missed two free throws, but grabbed the rebound in front of the court, made up the ball, and the two sides drew to drag the game into overtime.
In this Lakers overtime game to narrowly win over the Spurs, Munch's efficiency value is as high as +31, crushing Wei Shao and thick eyebrows, occupying the first place on the team, which is simply incredible.
Dating back to the Lakers' narrow victory over the Grizzlies the day before, Munch played equally brightly, playing 21 minutes off the bench in that game, shooting 4 of 3 of 7, 2 of 2 of 2 from the free throws, scoring 12 points, 2 rebounds, 4 assists and 1 steal, while the efficiency value of +19 was the highest in the team.
At only 23 years old, he would rather give up his tens of millions of annual salary to switch to the Lakers' big gamble, which currently seems to be the right bet, if the Lakers can win this season's championship, then Munch will be like Caruso, who switched to the Bulls in the offseason, and after the contract expires, there are naturally many teams willing to offer him big contracts!