{"id":118437,"date":"2025-01-16T14:20:58","date_gmt":"2025-01-16T19:20:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=118437"},"modified":"2025-01-16T14:25:56","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T19:25:56","slug":"ex-lakers-player-quincy-olivari-thanks-lebron-james","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/16\/ex-lakers-player-quincy-olivari-thanks-lebron-james\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Lakers Player Reflects On LeBron James’ Blueprint"},"content":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles Lakers fan favorite\u00a0<\/span>Quincy Olivari<\/span><\/a>\u00a0was\u00a0<\/span>abruptly cut earlier this week<\/span><\/a>\u00a0after spending much of the season to date with the Lakers G League affiliate, the South Bay Lakers. Olivari made Lakers fans stand up with an electrifying pre-season game when the first-year player out of Xavier put on a show. Subsequently, LA signed him to a two-way deal, only to let him go a few months later. It is disappointing, but it surely won’t be Olivari’s only chance in the NBA.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ex-Lakers Player Reflects LeBron James’ Blueprint<\/h2>\n

Former Lakers Rookie Quincy Olivari Was ‘Excited to Watch’ LeBron James<\/h3>\n

Olivari will latch onto another team, and it won’t be long. If the\u00a0<\/span>Lakers<\/span><\/a>\u00a0had nothing more to do with him, another franchise will find a spot. Nevertheless, if you ask Olivari, his time in Los Angeles, as short as it was, was not in vain. Following his release, Olivari commented on his time with the Lakers and specifically gave a shout-out to\u00a0<\/span>LeBron James<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0whom the young rookie watched closely from the preseason to a day ago, while speaking with Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson of ScoopB.com<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

“It was great being here, especially being around a storied franchise like the Los Angeles Lakers. I loved being in the facility every day around legends because I was able to ask questions and learn. More importantly, I enjoyed being around a legend in LeBron James and seeing how he approaches the game even in preseason games, which is remarkable.” <\/em>Olivari continued to compliment James, “He\u2019s a guy that shows up every day and he\u2019s literally the blueprint for how a player should approach the game. It\u2019s something I was excited to watch and I\u2019m glad I was able to experience it.”<\/em><\/p>\n

If you’re a young talent starting out in the professional league, keeping your eyes on how the best of the best do it every day is beneficial in one hundred ways. In Olivari’s case, LeBron was his marker, and LeBron’s way of life in the NBA is a reasonably perfect marker to follow. Hopefully, for the sake of his NBA future, Olivari will take what he learned from LeBron to his next opportunity in whichever city that may be.<\/p>\n

Another Young Talent Thrown Away<\/h3>\n

Olivari isn’t the first young talent the Lakers have given up on. Unfortunately, they messed around with\u00a0<\/span>Jalen Hood-Schifino<\/span><\/a>\u00a0for a couple of seasons before eventually trading him away. Even before him, the Lakers were popular for giving up on young talent they acquired via draft selections. Case in point:\u00a0<\/span>Lonzo Ball<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>Moritz Wagner<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>Kyle Kuzma<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>Ivica Zubac<\/span><\/a>, and\u00a0<\/span>Brandon Ingram<\/span><\/a>, to name a few. All these players, with maybe the exception of Ball, have departed the Lakers organization and crafted excellent basketball careers elsewhere. It speaks more to the Lakers organization than anything else.<\/span><\/p>\n

Olivari might not have gotten much playing time or a chance to experience real NBA minutes yet. It won’t be long before he signs elsewhere. He could follow the trajectory of other young, talented players dropped by the purple and gold and find greener pastures in a different jersey. Maybe in\u00a0<\/span>Golden State<\/span><\/a>? With\u00a0<\/span>Steph Curry<\/span><\/a>? What a story that would be.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles Lakers fan favorite\u00a0Quincy Olivari\u00a0was\u00a0abruptly cut earlier this week\u00a0after spending much of the season to date with the Lakers G League affiliate, the South Bay Lakers. Olivari made Lakers fans stand up with an electrifying pre-season game when the first-year player out of Xavier put on a show. Subsequently, LA signed him to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":118439,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,1608,62],"tags":[308,652,4907,1128,38,667,1532,49377,48],"class_list":["post-118437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lakers","category-basketball","category-nba","tag-brandon-ingram","tag-ivica-zubac","tag-jalen-hood-schifino","tag-kyle-kuzma","tag-lebron-james","tag-lonzo-ball","tag-moritz-wagner","tag-quincy-olivari","tag-stephen-curry"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118437"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118464,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118437\/revisions\/118464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}