The exit meeting could have veered in the many directions in which Jordan Clarkson has progressed.

He maintained steady growth in his scoring. He won nearly every conditioning drill from training camp to the last practice. He healed quickly enough through a handful of injuries to miss only three games all season.

Most of the Clarkson’s exit meeting with Lakers coach Byron Scott and general manager Mitch Kupchak centered on something else, though.

“I was horrible on the defensive end this year,” Clarkson said. “It’s somewhere I have to make strides.”

The consequences on any lack of substantial progress appears to go beyond the Lakers struggling to exceed this season’s mark in which they ranked 26th out of 30 NBA teams in points allowed (106.9).

“If we get the right players in here and if he doesn’t do it, he won’t play much,” Scott said of Clarkson. “It’s that simple.”

If only it were simple for Clarkson to fix that area.

According to NBA.com, players went 62.5 percent from the field on shots Clarkson defended. Clarkson also finished with a defensive rating of 111.5, meaning opponents scored that many points per 100 possessions anytime Clarkson was on the floor.

“He is too athletic and too quick to be that bad defensively,” Scott said. “Numbers from our analytical department don’t lie.”

Yet, Clarkson still averaged 1.1 steals, second on the Lakers behind rookie point guard D’Angelo Russell (1.2). The Lakers also struggled because their youthful backcourt often failed to receive enough help from a plodding Roy Hibbert.

Nonetheless, Clarkson plans to devote his summer revamping that area in numerous ways, including weight training, film study, one-on-one play and pick-up scrimmages.

“I’ll put my hard hat on and get after it this summer. To be honest, I never worked on defense,” Clarkson said. “It’s one of those things you have to set your mind to do.”

Otherwise, Clarkson’s future with the Lakers seems set because of what Scott called his “big-time upside.”

After being the 46th pick in the NBA Draft and making the NBA’s All-Rookie First team last season, Clarkson increased his scoring average from 11.9 points per game to 15.5 points. Clarkson logged double figures for 27 consecutive games. Although his playing time increased from 25 minutes his rookie year to 32.3 minutes, Clarkson produced more despite diminished ball-handling duties with Russell and Kobe Bryant on the floor.

Those numbers partly helped Clarkson land a spot in the NBA Rising Stars game and the Skills Challenge.

They could also help Clarkson’s future with the Lakers.

Should Clarkson accept the Lakers’ one-year qualifying offer in June, he would end up as a restricted free agent again in 2017. Clarkson could explore the open market in hopes for a better deal, which the Lakers will have three days to match. The Lakers will have up to $60 million in cap space available.

“I feel confident I’ll be back here. I want to be here,” Clarkson said. “I want to be one of those guys that is not bouncing around from team to team. I want to be somewhere where I can come home and leave my mark or legacy or somewhere I can call home. I feel like this is the place I can do that.”

Because of his pending free agency, Clarkson will not play with the Philippines national team in Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Manila. Clarkson’s participation in the Las Vegas Summer League also remains up in the air.

But with the Lakers offering brutal honesty during Clarkson’s exit meeting about his development, Clarkson vows he will perfect an area he otherwise paid little attention to in the past.