Kid has 11 assists in 26 minutes and hits 66% of his threes and plays another solid defensive game on a bad ankle and everyone is labeling him a bust.
Solid game. Should have played more...I'm guessing his ankle isn't 100% yet and it showed defensively. But when are we going to stop making excuses for this guy? We clearly messed up selecting him over Tatum, Fox and Mitchell. Would we NOT be better with Fox right now at point guard? Somebody tell me with a straight face that we wouldn't look great with Fox instead of Lonzo?
Grass is always greener, plenty of teams missed on those players. Hell, Philly gave up a pick to not select Tatum lol. Also, we have no patience around here, so we would have been cursing to the heavens all last season about Fox because he couldn’t shoot for s***. This season, maybe he looks good, maybe he doesn’t look as good though because playing next to LeBron he wouldn’t have the ball in his hands every single possession he’s in the game like he does now. My question to this is always, what’s the point of looking back with hindsight and complaining about a miss. You could say we missed with Russ instead of Porzingis and Booker, a couple guys over Ingram, few guys over Ball, but the draft is a crapshoot, we took who we took and we have who we have. I don’t see it as a bad thing to continue to see the positives in their games and give them a little more patience considering their young ages, and root for their success rather than lamenting who we don’t have instead. There’s also the obvious thing people often leave out, if we initially draft Porzingis or Booker, we probably don’t lose enough games to get the 2nd pick again, and then again. Things unfold how they do because of the right circumstances.
with Ball it wasn't just a "miss"....we did not workout Fox or Tatum and it seems as though mgmt had their mind made up even when that story came out that they weren't really that impressed with the 1st workout and had to work him out a 2nd time to make sure. If you have doubts bout a prospect, then you should've given the other prospect a fair chance to work out for them as well. Tatum as matter of fact was big Kobe fan, he would've turned out great here and I still think we take Kuz with the later picks, Bi might be on his way out now if Tatum was here and not Ball
Can we please stop crying over Tatum? He's had a slow start and shown little growth, but I'm sure we'll find a way to make excuses for him on a team that had zero player turnover.
but you keep going back to Tatum as if he's absolutely blossoming in Boston. You address these "excuses" for Zo by comparing to Tatum, and he hasn't been that impressive early on here. The point is that these are all children and a rough stretch doesn't mean the book is already written on any of them.
We needed a Magic mold type point guard to make the whole franchise happy, specifically Magic and Jeanie. We may have one it appears. What is your point continuing with comparing him to Tatum and moaning over it. We have Kuz.
we didn't work out Tatum, which was an absolute MISS from our front office and scouting...but we DID work out Fox...which again, I'm having a hard time understanding WHY we didn't take him if we actually saw him in a workout! on top of that...i remember hearing that when we worked out FULTZ...that he was the best prospect we had ever seen, or something wild and exaggerated like that. Honestly, if you re-did this draft, both Fultz and Lonzo would not crack the top 5. It just sucks to miss on 3 straight #2 picks and then throw in the fact that we lost Randle for nothing (#7 pick)...it does suck. We need to seriously evaluate whether keeping Zo and Ingram is worth it or if we get rid of both in favor of a 2nd star right now to potentially attract a third star over the summer.
I didn't know we worked out Fox....I can see why he wouldn't have been considered with his weak shooting that yr...I'm sure Zo shooting impressed he seems to be hitting his shots with relative easy from "practice" videos with no defenders, I could imagine fox missing a ton from 3's that yr. I was against ball because of the hype from the start and thought either Fox (penetrating guard for kickouts) and tatum (looked a lot smoother as a player at Duke than BI did) but his knock was also 3pt shooting, which surprising he's one of the best in Bos now lol.
I'm not mad about picking Ingram. Clearly he was the 2nd best player at the time the draft was done. I'm also not mad for Russell because again, clearly the choice was him or Okafor...Porzingis had too much bust potential and Booker was just not on the radar. No complain there either. As with Ball, I really don't know how much you can blame the FO for picking him. He was great at UCLA. He was advertised as one of the best prospects. I don't know if I had made a different pick either, so can't say they made an obvious mistake. There was tremendous pressure to take him. Everybody had this one locked. I also didn't think that highly of Tatum and Fox simply wasn't a good enough shooter, nor such a hot commodity back then. The other choice would have been Josh Jackson who is not exactly a sensation in Phoenix either. Mitchell to me still is a one dimensional scorer. He is a great kid, love him, but IMO his value is overrated. Plenty of players could produce scoring numbers with a green light. He isn't particularly efficient either. Ya it sucks to miss out with 3 number 2 picks but it IS a crap shoot. You have to live with it. That's why we can grab a guy like Nance, Kuzma, Hart out of the blue and run away with it. You win some, you lose some. For Ball, being the 3rd consecutive #2 dud certainly leads to harder feelings, especially when Magic and Rob presented him as the face of the franchise and a HOF in the making. He doesn't come close to those expectations and never will. Thats why people say he sucks because that's the standard he has to live up to and is getting compared to, set by his stupid father and the FO. This was an epic own goal by the front office.
The Russell and Ingram misses are more forgiveable. Plenty of people, here and elsewhere, weren't sure ball was #2-worthy. I and others wanted to trade the pick, either down or for an established player. I do think the vigorous defense of his subpar play has to do with a reluctance to hold management accountable. Anyway, we'll see how much of a sunk cost some of these things become. This FO was quick to dump Russell when they figured he wasn't a star, but he wasn't their pick.
I've been wondering that myself with him and even Ingram. I like both, but they get a lot of rope. Wondering how long we will keep holding on to potential if they don't start showing more consistently on the court. Particularly Ingram who I have feel like needs to show he's the guy by the end of this season.
I have out of respect for Barns. But I couldn't resist laughing at your hypocrisy. But hey if you want to be around more, feel free. It's fun to watch the fans of other team's reactions to the Lakers. I'm too busy to be on here as much these days anyway so I won't really have to deal with you too much. This sort of hostility is probably bad for the site. See you guys later. Go Lakers.
