Lakers News: Cole Swider Discusses Sharpshooting Preseason Debut
Rookie two-way power forward Cole Swider showed off an impressive shooting touch during his preseason debut with your Los Angeles Lakers, an eventual 105-75 defeat to the visiting Sacramento Kings. Beyond his shooting, Swider didn't add much, but then again, he's a two-way player heading into his first-ever NBA season.
Across 19:13 minutes of game action, the 6'9" 23-year-old went 3-for-7 from the floor (including 2-of-4 from long range) and made 2-of-3 charity stripe looks for 10 points. He was also a -30 on the night in plus-minus.
After going undrafted out of Syracuse University this past summer, Swider was immediately snatched up by the Lakers' front office and inked to a two-way contract, meaning he is expected to split his time between the Los Angeles Lakers proper and their NBA G League affiliate club, the South Bay Lakers, in El Segundo.
In his final NCAA season, Swider averaged 13.9 points per game on .440/.411/.866 shooting splits. That 41.1% mark on triples came on a high-volume 6.0 attempts. Swider actually shot from beyond the arc than within it last year, having taken just 5.1 looks from closer range. He also grabbed 6.8 rebounds, 1.4 dimes and a steal across his 33 games with Syracuse, all starts.
Over the course of his cumulative college career, which included three seasons toiling for Villanova in a smaller role before transferring as a senior, Swider nailed an encouraging 38.1% of his 4.0 triples a night.
During the rookie's postgame press conference availability, Daniel Starkand of Laker Nation asked Swider about adjusting to the quickness of players and plays at the NBA level, and how it differs from his college experience and from Summer League:
"It's definitely.. different. I was saying this earlier, I think everyone was the best player on their college team, even players playing in preseason. So it's definitely a transition but at the same time I feel pretty good out there just speed-wise and [in terms of] the speed of the game."
Swider added, "It was amazing" to play as a Laker alongside some of his legendary new teammates. "LeBron on the sideline, being in Crypto [Arena] was amazing." Swider added that his father and grandfather were both in attendance on Monday.
Per Mike Trudell of Spectrum SportsNet, Cole Swider acknowledged that he has been informed he is an NBA-caliber shooter (a big attribute for a stretch four), but most work on fleshing out the other elements of his game.
