Jalen Hood-Schifino has had an absolutely brutal start to his career.

He spent the majority of his rookie season dealing with injuries and eventually underwent spinal surgery after finally showing some promise in the G-League, with the South Bay Lakers. Now, with his second season underway and looking rather similarly to his first, the Los Angeles Lakers have a decision to make.

Jalen Hood-Schifino has had an absolutely brutal start to his career. He spent the majority of his rookie season dealing with injuries and eventually underwent spinal surgery after finally showing some promise in the G-League, with the South Bay Lakers.

Now, with his second season underway and looking rather similarly to his first, the Los Angeles Lakers have a decision to make.

By October 31, Rob Pelinka and the Lakers will have to decide whether they are going to exercise Hood-Schifino’s third year rookie-scale option or decline it, which would make Hood-Schifino an unrestricted free agent after this season.

The Lakers, sources told ClutchPoints, intend to exercise that option, thus guaranteeing his contract for next year when, at Halloween, they’ll have the same decision to make all over again.

For most first-round picks entering their second season, this decision is all but a formality.

Even players like Hood-Schifino, who struggle their way through that first season, typically have their options exercised because teams don’t want to admit so quickly that they swung and missed on a first-round pick.

What makes the perception of all this even tougher is the success so many teams had throughout the 2023 NBA Draft. More specifically, right after the Lakers’ selection.

Was Jalen Hood-Schifino a mistake for Lakers?

Jaime Jaquez, the UCLA standout who did a ton of winning locally, went to the Miami Heat.

He made an immediate impact for a Heat team that desperately needed him to. Even worse, Jaquez could’ve been the best Mexican player the Lakers have ever had, igniting a part of the fan base that has been begging for a legitimate NBA talent for, well, ever.

After Miami draft Jaquez, the Golden State Warriors picked another west coast kid — Brandin Podziemski — who has been a fixture in their rotation right from the start despite playing for Steve Kerr, who is notoriously hard on young players.

Then, as if that wasn’t enough, the Houston Rockets took Cam Whitmore, who many in the Lakers organization liked, sources said. But a decision to possibly select Whitmore was overruled because of his injury concerns.

It should be pointed out that Hood-Schifino has played a total of just 21 NBA games for the Lakers.

Another factor complicating this decision is just how crowded the Lakers’ guard situations are at both the NBA and G-League levels. The second-year guard has basically no chance at cracking the actual roster at either guard spot since he is sitting behind Austin Reaves, D’Angelo Russell, Gabe Vincent, Max Christie, and Dalton Knecht.

Even further, the South Bay Lakers’ guard rotation is also going to be competitive, as Hood-Schifino will have to fight for minutes with Bronny James and recently converted Quincy Olivari.

Bronny, especially, is going to be an interesting case because LeBron James will be right there to keep tabs on his development and how many minutes he’s getting as he tries to carve out his path to a consistent role in the NBA.

At the end of the day, though, given how little the Lakers have seen from Hood-Schifino because of the injuries and because of how rarely Pelinka admits to mistakes, this was a pretty easy decision to see coming.

That said, according to sources close to the situation, if his career continues along its current trajectory, it feels unlikely he’ll have his fourth-year option picked up next season.

This is why the Lakers, sources said, have dangled Hood-Schifino’s name in trade talks. To this point, there has not been much interest.

Hood-Schifino is still young and has shown flashes of his potential in the G-League. As some might say, perhaps there’s a solid backup point guard in there somewhere.

It seems the former first-round pick has this and next year to prove that is the case.