What’s up? I’m Sam from Philly, a massive tennis, NBA, NFL, and NCAA basketball fan. Occasionally, I’ll watch a Yankees game. Currently I’m facing an identity crisis as to whether I’m a true Heat fan or a bandwagon 76ers fan. My favorite non-Heat/76ers player is James Harden, because he’s unguardable in 2K Blacktop.
Lonzo Ball, in a mere matter of weeks, had 19-point, 12-rebound, 13-assist and 11-point, 16-rebound 11-assist triple-doubles. His “bust” title, however, remains because of his inconsistency. In another two-game span, he combined for 9 points, 10 rebounds, and 7 assists on 4-19 shooting. Ball has shot only 31% on the season, and Coach Luke Walton has benched him in multiple fourth quarters. Some things are falling apart for Ball, but he’s exceeded my expectations in his performance early this season.
Wait, What?
Let me explain. Lonzo Ball, though struggling with his shot, is passing, rebounding, and defending exceptionally. The tunnel vision we place on his (horrendous) field goal percentage is unfair to Lonzo when he’s doing well in many other regards.
Exceptional Play-making
Lonzo Ball is a gifted passer. Not even his most ardent critics can deny this fact. But the fact that Lonzo is averaging 7.1 assists while defenses don’t even respect his jumper hasn’t earned enough credit. When you can’t shoot, it becomes much more difficult to open up passing lanes. The defense will simply dare you to take shots until you burn them. Just ask Ricky Rubio this season, whose 3-point touch has disappeared (25% from deep on the year), and whose assist numbers have tanked from 9.1 to 5.5.
Lonzo can’t make shots efficiently yet, but he’s still finding his teammates under these difficult circumstances. As Lonzo begins to make more shots, he’ll force defenses to respect him more and more, opening up newer passing lanes. We see this whenever Zo gets hot. He’s only had one volume-scoring game, and this was his 29-point outing against the Suns in the second game of the season. Over the next two games, he had 23 assists. Maybe that is just coincidental, but the only other game this year where Lonzo has been able to get double digit assists were his duo of triple-doubles.
So let’s summarize this up: without the use of his shot, Lonzo’s been able to consistently get 5 or 6 assists. When defenses have to respect it, he’s capable of averaging double digit assists, something he didn’t even do at UCLA (7.6 AST).
Rebounding
Lonzo is also averaging the most rebounds for a rookie guard in the 3-point era with 7.1. Let me rephrase: Since the 3-point line was introduced, no rookie guard has EVER averaged more rebounds than Lonzo. The crazier thing, maybe, is that nobody seems to be reporting this. I had to look this stat up on Basketball-Reference on a hunch to find it out — this isn’t something that I read somewhere. His rebounding talent has been largely ignored, even in college when he averaged six per game. The fact that he’s averaging even more at the next level is something everyone should take note of.
Defense
I’m not going to use this paragraph to argue that Lonzo will be the next Gary Payton. Instead, I’d like to point out how his defense is translating well to the next level. While Lonzo’s offensive game has been lacking, his defense has remained steady. He’s averaging 1.5 steals and 0.9 blocks, compared to one All-Star guard’s 1.1 and 1.2.
When looking at advanced stats, Zo’s defensive win share tally is 1.0, compared to the same guard’s 0.6. His defensive box plus-minus is 2.9, compared to the other guard’s 0.1. The guard I had earlier chosen not to name is John Wall, who’s the self-dubbed “best two-way guard in the NBA”. Standing at 6’6” and with a 7-foot wingspan, Lonzo has shown that he can play defense against NBA-caliber foes. As he matures, he should become even better on this end of the floor.
Looking to the Future
Before the draft, I thought that Lonzo had a lot of areas to improve in order to become a superstar, but after his start my mind is changed. Lonzo only needs experience and a shot in order to become a world-class player. All of the other skills are there for him, and because he shot so well in college Lonzo, will become more efficient in the future. Of course, having a LeBron on his team might help.