Lakers take Indiana PG Jalen Hood-Schifino with 1st-round pick in ...

EL SEGUNDO — Jalen Hood-Schifino wore a shiny green jacket over a black shirt with a black bowtie for his NBA draft night ensemble. He added a touch of bling with a necklace with the letters FINO hanging upon it. A nod to the last letters of his last name, of course, but also a reminder that Failure Is Not an Option.

It’s something of a family motto.

“It’s kind of crazy, so it’s kind of hard to say how I feel because I was a big Kobe (Bryant) fan when I was growing up,” Hood-Schifino told reporters in New York, after the Lakers picked him 17th overall Thursday night. “I was always watching his videos, watching the Lakers’ games.

“So, to get drafted by the Lakers is kind of crazy, kind of surreal. I’m super excited. Just sitting in that chair, I’m not a person who gets too high or too low, but today my emotions were like a rollercoaster. To hear my name called, it was just kind of like a relief. I was super happy, super excited.”

Hood-Schifino comes from an athletic family.

His father, Glenn Hood, was a quarterback at Santa Monica College. His mother, Adrianne, played basketball at Lock Haven (Pennsylvania). His uncle, Jake Schifino, was a fifth-round pick in the 2002 NFL Draft and appeared in 14 games. Another uncle, Drew Schifino, played basketball at West Virginia.

Hood-Schifino attended Chris Paul’s Rising Stars Camp as a high school freshman. He grew up in the Pittsburgh area, but the family moved to Charlotte, North Carolina while he was in middle school. He helped Montverde Academy to high school national championships in his junior and senior seasons.

He wound up at Indiana University, he said during a Zoom call with reporters in Los Angeles, because of Hoosiers coach Mike Woodson’s background as an NBA player and coach. While in Bloomington, Woodson gave him a preview of what it would be like to be a professional basketball player.

“He really fits the direction we’re going in and how we’re trying to build this roster out,” Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka said. “Jalen is an on-ball point guard with a 6-foot-10 wingspan. Just great, great positional size. Really carries himself as a pro. He was just ahead of his time in terms of his diet, training. It shows with his physique, his body. He definitely has Lakers DNA.”

Hood-Schifino, a guard listed at 6-foot-5½ and 217 pounds, went on to become the Big Ten Conference Freshman of the Year after averaging 13.5 points on 41.7% shooting to go with 4.1 rebounds and 3.7 assists in 32 games.

During one especially sizzling three-game stretch against Big Ten opponents Ohio State, Northwestern and Iowa, he averaged 26 points per game, making 16 of 24 shots from 3-point range, plus five assists.

“I would say I’m an all-around player,” Hood-Schifino said when asked during a Zoom call with reporters in El Segundo to describe his style of play. “I’m a big guard. Defensively, I can guard any position. My big body can help me. (Woodson’s) NBA knowledge helped me. I know there’s going to be a learning curve.”

Pelinka and the Lakers were sold on Hood-Schifino after meeting him in the days leading up to the draft. When they asked Hood-Schifino if he could have lunch with any person, he mentioned the one name that means so much to the Lakers: Bryant, who died in a tragic helicopter crash more than three years ago.

“His Mamba Mentality is a code he has lived by,” Pelinka said of Hood-Schifino, recalling their pre-draft interview. “You could tell he didn’t throw that out because it was a Lakers interview. It felt from the heart.”

Earlier in the day, the Lakers reportedly moved up from the 47th overall pick to take Pepperdine’s Maxwell Lewis with the 40th selection. The Lakers sent the 47th pick and cash to the Indiana Pacers in order to select Lewis, who averaged a team-leading 17.1 points on 46.8% shooting as a sophomore in 2022-23.

Lewis also named Bryant as his favorite player and the Lakers as his favorite team while growing up in suburban Phoenix. He is one of six children of Robert and Jennifer Lewis. His brother, Marcus, was a running back at Iowa State, and his sister, Monique, was on the track and field team at UNLV.

Pelinka couldn’t speak about Lewis or even mention his name because the trade hadn’t been formalized.