A few players are under as much pressure before the 2018/19 season as Lonzo Ball. He already knows this – but an interesting year awaits the point guard of the Los Angeles Lakers.
For a 20-year-old Lonzo Ball has had quite a lot to do with superlatives in his life. First and foremost, of course, because of his father LaVar, according to him Lonzo had better basketball skills than Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon at the age of 6, and because of the stylisation and marketing of the Ball Clan as a kind of Kardashian of the NBA.
But this is by no means the only reason. Ball was already in the spotlight at college, when he was the No.2 pick at the Los Angeles Lakers and Magic Johnson’s declared dream player, and before last season he was once again pulled in front of significantly more headlights. At Ball everything is somehow always huge, dramatic, important, superlative.
The statement that the young point guard received from Johnson before the summer fits in very well: “This will be the most important off-season of your life,” said the Lakers president to Ball during his exit interview. And even if Magic likes to overdo it with the pathos similar to LaVar – it is worth taking a look at this statement at least once.
Especially since they can be interpreted in different ways. If you look at the situation of the Lakers, it has changed massively over the summer. The face of the team is no longer the young players, but LeBron James, with whom seriousness and ambition return to L.A. at the same time.
The Lakers are not yet a Contender, even if they certainly see it differently. In any case, however, their timetable has been shortened. James will turn 34 at the end of the year and next year at the latest there should be a real chance to win the title. James is under contract to the Lakers for four years, and understandably none of them should be given away.
For the young players this means that they either have to swim quickly or will sink (or trade). Ball is under much more scrutiny than Brandon Ingram or Kyle Kuzma, for example.
You could read Johnson’s testimony the same way: The gaping gaps that the Point Guard revealed in his first season must not actually exist a season later, LeBron or not. Ball indicated great potential, scored 10 points, 7 rebounds and assists on average and played defensively at an unexpectedly high level. But he was also one of the worst scorers in the league.
Among all players who scored at least 200 field goals last year, Ball ranked fourth last with an effective throwing rate of 44 percent and even last but one (36 percent) out of a total of 214 qualified players with the conventional throwing rate. His scoring wasn’t a construction site, it was a bomb crater.
Accordingly, a lot of work of different nature was necessary over the summer and Magic certainly wanted to pass this on to the bearer of hope. The problem, however, was that the ball was not fit – and the injury problems at the knee affected his offseason even more than could have been foreseen at the beginning.
Even as a rookie, ball with knee problems missed 30 games, including the last eight games of the season. He then received a PRP injection (platelet-rich plasma) into his left knee to stabilize it, but shortly before the start of the Free Agency he himself (in the ball clan reality show “Ball in the Family”, take that, Shams and Woj!) announced that he had torn his meniscus.
He had to undergo surgery – and according to the Lakers it was no coincidence that he announced this at this very moment and thus significantly reduced his trade value. In any case, this surgery ordered him to take another six weeks off from basketball activities. Throughout the offseason, Ball could not participate in 5-on-5 units.
Ball has nevertheless made some progress. Last week there were videos about the Lakers of Ball, in which it became visible that he has changed his (nicely said) ugly throwing movement at least a little bit and now gets rid of the ball faster. This still has to prove itself in the real game, but the approach seems at least correct.
More important, however, could be his physical transformation. Ball has become noticeably stronger over the summer after being too easy to push around in year one. “He has reshaped his body and made sure that when he is attacked next season by a strong guard like Russell Westbrook, he can push back. You can see that in his physique,” acknowledged General Manager Rob Pelinka.
The stronger stature should also help Ball with his biggest weakness from the rookie year. Much was always focused on the throw, but this was by no means his only offensive weakness: Ball was also a very inefficient scorer around the basket and drew only 1.4 free throws in 34.2 minutes per game, ridiculous for a player who held the ball as much in his hand as he did. Balls game was offensively missing not only fine-tuning.
Last season it was neither average for pull-ups (37.5 percent) nor for mid-range throws (32.6 percent) or floaters (29.7 percent), and it also had major problems directly on the basket (46 percent). Sometimes this had to do with a missing touch, but ball often evaded contact and thus gave off unnatural throws.
If he manages to act more resolutely – and “selfishly”, as he rightly demanded of himself – in the future, this could have a great effect and possibly give him the much-needed push, both in terms of efficiency and free throws. Especially since a slightly improved finish would of course also simplify its greatest strength, passing play. Currently, any opponent can sink against him far, even more than one knows it from Rajon Rondo, for example, for years.
It’s also ambiguous that Rondo of all people has recently joined the Lakers. “We didn’t have a mentor last year to show Lonzo how to act as a point guard,” Johnson told Rondo last summer about the $9 million one year contract. “Now we have one in Rondo who can teach him a lot about basketball. I believe that Rondo Lonzo will help a lot in this important year.”
That would be one way of looking at it. The other one: Rondo is now 32 years old and no longer the star of earlier days, but as a pure mentor who advises and supports from the bank, he certainly does not see himself. Rondo may well be a competitor for Ball, maybe even protection. After all, the team must also take the risk of injury seriously.
Of course, there is still the possibility that the Lakers Ball will be part of a superstar trade during the season and then need an experienced A’s like Rondo. Lonzo is both a potential franchise cornerstone and an important trade chip, as contradictory as it sounds.
These are just a few of the various topics Ball is dealing with before his sophomore season. He will need a lot of strength not only physically but also mentally – last season probably no rookie was subject to as much pressure as he (partly to his own fault), last year it has become even more pressure.
Magic was right: It was and is probably the most important offseason in Ball’s life, and it will perhaps also be the most important season of his life. At least until the next one. In this family and in this franchise there is probably at least one more increase for every superlative.