I watched him at UCLA and was already a fan and I have no worries about him at all either. It was a subpar game for Ball but much better than his debut in Summer League. Learning to pick your spots as a PG is better than over-shooting of course. Luke not having implemented the real offense and not having a guy like Lopez made things way tougher out there than it should have been for him. Ball works great in a system.
The wolves were making an effort to get back and take away balls outlet passes. Pretty cool to see them respect that already. They kinda forced him to play half court at times and he seemed to struggle a bit. All stuff he will learn in time. He def needs to be more aggressive though.
Having effective 7 foot centers as options in the half court should help a great deal as well. Lopez, Bogut and Zu who played OK last night for the most part.
As others have said he was displaying these same issues in his first summer league game and improved steadily as the games kept coming. He's be fine. I just love the opportunities and experiences he's getting thrown into. Good for him and his development.
A lot of our players are not used to Lonzos style yet, that's why there's tons of turnovers from him. Like that one play with Deng and Randle where he saw them in good positions and they weren't ready so it just went out of bounds. Also he's still adjusting to the NBA speed which takes time. Remember hes a rookie. I honestly see kuzma talking roty over Lonzo.
The thing about 1 and done players is that they have no idea the physical grind that a regular season can have on their bodies. Add to that, most rooks are not expected to be starters with heavy minutes and the offense revolving around them right out the gate. Whether he was sick or not for his pre-draft Lakers workout, dude looked gassed when video footage was released of that session. He looked gassed in large stretches during summer league. He continuously mentions or insinuates in his interviews towards concerns of how his body will hold up going against grown men for a prolonged bball calendar. And as much as Ennis has impressed and proven capable, we're really shallow at the PG spot, so Zo is forced into massive minutes this year. To me, its going to be Zo's conditioning. He's got to really pick it up in that dept. When he develops that second wind, there won't be a noticeable drop off in his play as there is now....same with BI.
Watching his Facebook show Lonzo is not a healthy eater at all... So he's going to have fatigue issues because of the crap he puts in his body. He needs to up his diet and conditioning to play 82 games, also obviously getting stronger
I loved when he kept on playing D after that ankle twist. DLO (which i realy liked) would be rolling on the ground, acting like he was shoot .
nice run-stopper type three when denver started kicking the lakers' a**** all over the floor. the block on which he hurt his ankle was a nice play, too, not giving up after getting beat. i think it's going to be a rough year, but yeah, i'm with lbd, lonzo is the least of our worries.
He looks good. I'm really unconcerned with him. I still like what he does in the open court, but they need more guys willing to pass like him. When we're at our most dangerous early in the games, the ball is flying around offensively or the SL team is in there sharing the ball and flying around to open spots. Our starters have not picked that up yet. His defense is going to be an issue for a while though. It'll be a work in progress. He may be better suited to defending SGs.
this is why I said at draft time that he could play sg--he can defend that spot (maybe should) and i think, long-term, you need another guard capable of penetrating to share the floor on offense.
Can he go 3 games in a row without getting hurt ? Something to watch going forward. Missed a lot of time in Summer League. Becoming a trend.
It's also quite apparent what the starters are still missing, shooters. 2-5 there is almost zero spacing. We need someone the defense is going to respect from outside or they will collapse on Zo everytime.
When Nash came in and worked out with him at our training facility during the summer Nash and Lonzo both said that was one of the things that Nash brought up that was key for his long term success. Lonzo said he would take note of this and I hope he follows through. Between, that episode probably had been recorded before meeting with Nash.
