Prediction 1: Lonzo Ball is going to be a Hall of Famer.
I don't want you to think I'm getting overhyped here. (I am, but I don't want you to think that.) I have never made this prediction about a draft pick. In ANY sport. They tell me Lonzo Ball has flaws. They tell me his shot is broken. Actually, wait, let's do a new thing for this:
Weakness 1: His shot is broken.
Okay, A, no it's not. Lonzo Ball shot 55% from the field, 41% from three, and 73% from two (because he doesn't take shots from the midrange, but that's basically a fetish for the modern NBA. He's still ridiculously good at them), the latter of which was 3rd in the country among everyone, big men included. His shot chart is absolutely ridiculous. Ben Simmons he is not. He shot 67% from the line, which has some people scared, but I'm pretty sure FT% is 99% psychological and 1% having hands too big to handle the ball, if you're Shaq, but that doesn't apply to Lonzo either.
There have also been claims that Lonzo has elite-tier speed on his release, which might help him get shots off in the NBA, but I'm not concerned one way or the other. Here's the thing: I don't need or want Lonzo to take all that many contested shots. If he can make them, that's fine, but if not, he can at least hit wide-open threes from Steph Curry land. That's enough to force teams to defend him, which creates space and lets him do that Lonzo magic (pun extremely intended). He's never gonna be Rondo or Rubio, where teams can play way off him because he can't punish them for it.
So really, Lonzo's shot is a strength. It's one of the best shots in college basketball statistically speaking, and it has the potential to be one of the best shots in the NBA.
Strength 1: He might be one of the best passers ever.
At the most basic level if you want to evaluate a passer you look at his assists. Lonzo looks good here: he averaged 7.6 assists per game, leading the nation by a good margin. (Markelle Fultz, all else aside, finished 17th with 5.9 APG).
At a slightly more sophisticated level, you might want to look at assist-to-turnover ratio, and Lonzo looks good here, too: He had 3.08 assists for every turnover, which is not actually first in the nation (it's 13th), but which is pretty unprecedented for point guards at his level (see this article, which is old but still accurate for everyone but Lonzo). In other words, Ball led the nation in assists (by, again, a comfortable margin) while turning the ball over less, proportionally speaking, than just about anyone in the nation (not to mention virtually all future elite NBA point guards).
On a qualitative level, it's easy to see by watching UCLA games just how much of an impact Ball's passing has. That whole offense, that #1-ranked juggernaut offense, that's all Ball. He's not just running the thing, he's practically inventing it as he goes along. He's the pilot of a top-flight fighter jet, Top Gun style, and he's flying it better than anyone else can fly their Cessna. He's the Peyton Manning of college basketball.
If that seems like not enough evidence to call Lonzo maybe one of the best passers ever, just read the rest of the article (and the last one) and keep in mind that while he's a great shooter, the vast majority of Ball's impact comes through his passing.
Weakness 2: The Lakers might not draft him.
So this isn't really a weakness of Ball himself, but moreso a weakness of this whole situation. What's weak is that the Lakers haven't explicitly said they're taking Ball. I'm hoping this is to avoid the instinctual sibling reaction of Boston to take him first, although part of me wants to believe that NBA front offices make decisions at a more mature level than that. (The other part of me remembers that John Hollinger, creator of the worst advanced stat ever made, is currently the VP of Basketball Operations for the Memphis Grizzlies, which is all the proof I need that NBA front offices have no goddamn clue what they're doing.)
My fear is that the Lakers get too clever and either trade this pick or take a player who's not Ball. The latter would be a huge mistake because Ball is by far the best prospect in this draft (although his floor is lower than Fultz's and some other players'). The former would be a mistake because, unless we draft Ball (more on this later), the Lakers aren't going to contend for another 3-4 years at minimum. But the Lakers front office, like all front offices, makes decisions either at random or based on the impulses of a child (cough Hollinger), and so I'm nervous.
(If you think I'm being too hard on the Lakers front office, recall that we're currently paying a combined $34 million to Luol Deng and Timofey Mozgov, who aren't even starting anymore. Admittedly those contracts come from a previous iteration of the Lakers FO, but that iteration was also considered one of the best front offices in the league.)
Strength 2: Lonzo Ball is able to impact the game with ridiculously low usage.
Here's the deal with usage rate. It's basically a measurement of how involved a player is in his team's offense. The ideal player is able to contribute a lot with relatively low usage, but in practice this is extremely rare. Most players either contribute a lot with a lot of usage, like Kobe Bryant (31.8% career usage) or Russell Westbrook (an all-time-record 41.7% usage this past, likely MVP, year), or they contribute a little with low usage (e.g. virtually every bit player in NBA history). It's very rare to find someone who contributes a lot with little usage, like Dennis Rodman (career usage of 11.4% and massively valuable to his team, partially because of said contribution-to-usage ratio).
A point guard's whole role is to control the offense, distribute the ball, and, secondarily, to score sometimes. A point guard who dominates the ball, like Westbrook or James Harden (34.2% usage last year), can still be a valuable asset to his team, because you want the ball in his hands a lot regardless. But a point guard who can contribute hugely to his offense while not taking up a third of his team's possessions is the absolute dream. Magic Johnson is such a player: he's considered the greatest point guard ever and his career usage is only 22.3%. Ditto John Stockton, whose career usage rate is a stunningly low 18.9%. Chris Paul has a career 24.0% usage, and Isaiah Thomas hit a career-high 34.0% this last year. Markell Fultz's usage rate is 31.4%.
All this is to give you context to what a normal usage rate is expected to be for an elite point guard. So you'll understand what it means when I tell you that Ball's usage rate is 18.1%. That's lower than EVERYONE I just listed, and well below everyone not named Stockton. But as my last article about Ball showed, Ball nevertheless has an incalculable impact on his team's offensive performance. To have that big an impact while commanding less than a 20% share of your team's possessions is absolutely staggering.
In other words, Ball is not the kind of player who demands that you build an offense around him. He's the kind of player who not only lets his teammates shine, but lets them outshine him. This is why, for all of the individual abilities that other players bring to the table, I don't think a single one of them will help their team nearly as much as Ball will.
Weakness 1: His shot is broken.
Okay, A, no it's not. Lonzo Ball shot 55% from the field, 41% from three, and 73% from two (because he doesn't take shots from the midrange, but that's basically a fetish for the modern NBA. He's still ridiculously good at them), the latter of which was 3rd in the country among everyone, big men included. His shot chart is absolutely ridiculous. Ben Simmons he is not. He shot 67% from the line, which has some people scared, but I'm pretty sure FT% is 99% psychological and 1% having hands too big to handle the ball, if you're Shaq, but that doesn't apply to Lonzo either.
There have also been claims that Lonzo has elite-tier speed on his release, which might help him get shots off in the NBA, but I'm not concerned one way or the other. Here's the thing: I don't need or want Lonzo to take all that many contested shots. If he can make them, that's fine, but if not, he can at least hit wide-open threes from Steph Curry land. That's enough to force teams to defend him, which creates space and lets him do that Lonzo magic (pun extremely intended). He's never gonna be Rondo or Rubio, where teams can play way off him because he can't punish them for it.
So really, Lonzo's shot is a strength. It's one of the best shots in college basketball statistically speaking, and it has the potential to be one of the best shots in the NBA.
Strength 1: He might be one of the best passers ever.
At the most basic level if you want to evaluate a passer you look at his assists. Lonzo looks good here: he averaged 7.6 assists per game, leading the nation by a good margin. (Markelle Fultz, all else aside, finished 17th with 5.9 APG).
At a slightly more sophisticated level, you might want to look at assist-to-turnover ratio, and Lonzo looks good here, too: He had 3.08 assists for every turnover, which is not actually first in the nation (it's 13th), but which is pretty unprecedented for point guards at his level (see this article, which is old but still accurate for everyone but Lonzo). In other words, Ball led the nation in assists (by, again, a comfortable margin) while turning the ball over less, proportionally speaking, than just about anyone in the nation (not to mention virtually all future elite NBA point guards).
On a qualitative level, it's easy to see by watching UCLA games just how much of an impact Ball's passing has. That whole offense, that #1-ranked juggernaut offense, that's all Ball. He's not just running the thing, he's practically inventing it as he goes along. He's the pilot of a top-flight fighter jet, Top Gun style, and he's flying it better than anyone else can fly their Cessna. He's the Peyton Manning of college basketball.
If that seems like not enough evidence to call Lonzo maybe one of the best passers ever, just read the rest of the article (and the last one) and keep in mind that while he's a great shooter, the vast majority of Ball's impact comes through his passing.
Weakness 2: The Lakers might not draft him.
So this isn't really a weakness of Ball himself, but moreso a weakness of this whole situation. What's weak is that the Lakers haven't explicitly said they're taking Ball. I'm hoping this is to avoid the instinctual sibling reaction of Boston to take him first, although part of me wants to believe that NBA front offices make decisions at a more mature level than that. (The other part of me remembers that John Hollinger, creator of the worst advanced stat ever made, is currently the VP of Basketball Operations for the Memphis Grizzlies, which is all the proof I need that NBA front offices have no goddamn clue what they're doing.)
My fear is that the Lakers get too clever and either trade this pick or take a player who's not Ball. The latter would be a huge mistake because Ball is by far the best prospect in this draft (although his floor is lower than Fultz's and some other players'). The former would be a mistake because, unless we draft Ball (more on this later), the Lakers aren't going to contend for another 3-4 years at minimum. But the Lakers front office, like all front offices, makes decisions either at random or based on the impulses of a child (cough Hollinger), and so I'm nervous.
(If you think I'm being too hard on the Lakers front office, recall that we're currently paying a combined $34 million to Luol Deng and Timofey Mozgov, who aren't even starting anymore. Admittedly those contracts come from a previous iteration of the Lakers FO, but that iteration was also considered one of the best front offices in the league.)
Strength 2: Lonzo Ball is able to impact the game with ridiculously low usage.
Here's the deal with usage rate. It's basically a measurement of how involved a player is in his team's offense. The ideal player is able to contribute a lot with relatively low usage, but in practice this is extremely rare. Most players either contribute a lot with a lot of usage, like Kobe Bryant (31.8% career usage) or Russell Westbrook (an all-time-record 41.7% usage this past, likely MVP, year), or they contribute a little with low usage (e.g. virtually every bit player in NBA history). It's very rare to find someone who contributes a lot with little usage, like Dennis Rodman (career usage of 11.4% and massively valuable to his team, partially because of said contribution-to-usage ratio).
A point guard's whole role is to control the offense, distribute the ball, and, secondarily, to score sometimes. A point guard who dominates the ball, like Westbrook or James Harden (34.2% usage last year), can still be a valuable asset to his team, because you want the ball in his hands a lot regardless. But a point guard who can contribute hugely to his offense while not taking up a third of his team's possessions is the absolute dream. Magic Johnson is such a player: he's considered the greatest point guard ever and his career usage is only 22.3%. Ditto John Stockton, whose career usage rate is a stunningly low 18.9%. Chris Paul has a career 24.0% usage, and Isaiah Thomas hit a career-high 34.0% this last year. Markell Fultz's usage rate is 31.4%.
All this is to give you context to what a normal usage rate is expected to be for an elite point guard. So you'll understand what it means when I tell you that Ball's usage rate is 18.1%. That's lower than EVERYONE I just listed, and well below everyone not named Stockton. But as my last article about Ball showed, Ball nevertheless has an incalculable impact on his team's offensive performance. To have that big an impact while commanding less than a 20% share of your team's possessions is absolutely staggering.
In other words, Ball is not the kind of player who demands that you build an offense around him. He's the kind of player who not only lets his teammates shine, but lets them outshine him. This is why, for all of the individual abilities that other players bring to the table, I don't think a single one of them will help their team nearly as much as Ball will.
Prediction 2: Lonzo Ball, if drafted by the Lakers, will take them to the playoffs in his first two seasons.
This one is bold. Really, really bold. The Lakers finished with the third-worst record in the league last season, and they play in the very strong Western conference. They aren't poised to make any major free-agent signings (in fact, despite popular misconception, they almost never do). The west is an extremely strong conference and it shows no signs of slowing down.
Within the next two years, the Lakers will be facing the following teams: A Warriors team starring Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Kevin Durant; a Spurs team with Kawhi Leonard, Danny Green, LaMarcus Aldridge, and the walking corpses of Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and Pau Gasol; a Rockets team with James Harden and pals; a Clippers team that, while currently starring Chris Paul et al., will quite possibly implode this offseason (wait and see); a Jazz team on the upswing (+10 wins this year), led by (I'm hoping) this year's DPOY in Rudy Gobert, plus something called a Gordon Hayward; the Russell Westbrooks; the Memphis Grizzlies; a potentially good Blazers team with Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum; the Nuggets (I don't think they will be a threat though); a Pelicans team with the disastrous duo of DeMarcus Cousins and Anthony Davis; the Miserable Mavericks; and if you think the Timberwolves' core is actually good (Karl-Anthony Towns, Ender Wiggin--once he gets good enough to deserve that nickname, Ricky Rubio, and Zach LaVine) then the Timberwolves. That's a lot of teams, several of whom are good.
I'm not going to try to predict the future, because things like Derrick Rose and Isaiah Thomas happen all the time. No one knows what franchises are going to take off with no warning or collapse into dust. But Lonzo Ball is a phenomenally gifted basketball player whose greatest attribute is that he improves his teammates' performance more than just about any point guard since Magic Johnson.
The Lakers have a young, raw core: D'Angelo Russell, who, despite the popular misconception that he is a "point guard," has actually been playing out of position for his entire pro career (he is a shooting guard); Brandon Ingram, who is very long and extremely talented (moreso physically than Lonzo, but less so BBIQ-wise) but hasn't quite figured out how to play yet, like a German Shepherd puppy trying to walk on its oversized paws; Julius Randle, who has teeny little T-Rex arms but who is inexplicably a pretty good basketball player; Larry Nance, Jr., who is athletic and actually good at defense; Ivica Zubac, whose name is pronounced "Ivitsa Zubats" and who is a surprisingly precocious center; Jordan Clarkson, who is a guy; and some other players. This motley crew is not very good right now; they finished, as I mentioned, third-to-last in the league, and although they probably underperformed a little because of the whole tanking thing, they didn't underperform by all that much. And while they showed a few flashes of brilliance (remember this game?), overall they did not impress.
But Lonzo Ball changes things. He is a magic player with a genius-level basketball IQ. He has the potential to turn all those guys from the preceding paragraph into All-Stars and strong role players. The Lakers were 17th in offense last year (slightly worse by ORTG). That's roughly as bad as the Bruins were (116th out of 351 by ORTG) before Ball showed up and turned them into the best offense in the country (2nd in PPG, 1st in ORTG). And before you jump on the defense train (which is reasonable; the Lakers are currently terrible at defense), you should know that Ball took the Bruins from 249th to 157th in DRTG. Some of that might be due to an easier schedule, or all of it might be. But I'm selectively choosing to credit Ball in order to support my own preconceived notions about his value to his team. The offense, though, is indisputable.
Weakness 3: LaVar Ball.
Unlike seemingly everyone else in the country, I don't have a problem with LaVar Ball. He's passionate and greedy and trying very hard to profit off of his son's success, but that's not any worse than anyone else involved with the NBA at any level. The reason I have LaVar as a weakness is because, as far as I can tell, the Lakers front office might actually have some concerns about him; they're reportedly talking with the coaching staff at UCLA to make sure he wasn't too disruptive to the team.
I don't think he will be. I think this whole thing is a concerted effort to A) get Lonzo to the Lakers, B) get his name (LaVar's) into the public eye, and C) polarize the world with respect to Lonzo. Polarization is absolutely key to getting the kind of success and fan loyalty that can make Lonzo an endorsement superstar. Nobody wants to sign Gordon Hayward to a billion-dollar deal (sorry for picking on him but he's just the most unremarkable top-tier player I can think of). I don't think LaVar actually gives a damn about what the Lakers do, and I definitely think he's smart enough to realize that if he doesn't shut up and leave the Lakers alone, his son will end up somewhere that's not LA.
There are only three ways I can think of that Lonzo won't be a Laker next year. First, if the Celtics take him. Second, if the Lakers fuck up horribly and decide that some other player is a better prospect or (shudder) a better fit. Or third, if they think LaVar will be a sufficiently large distraction to counteract the relative benefits of drafting Lonzo. This makes LaVar Lonzo's biggest weakness.
Strength 3: Fit.
When you're drafting a top-two draft pick (as the Lakers have in each of the past three drafts, including this one), you don't draft based on fit. You just don't. You would rather pull a Sixers and draft twelve elite big men and no guards than to draft based on fit and miss out on a superstar for your well-fitting role player. So when I say that Lonzo fits beautifully with the Lakers, I want to make it clear that this isn't a reason to take him. The reason to take him is all the stuff above: he's a basketball genius, he tremendously improves his team without dominating the ball, and he might be one of the best passers ever. Fit is just gravy.
That being said: Lonzo fits beautifully with the Lakers. As I mentioned, D'Angelo Russell is not really a point guard, he's a shooting guard playing out of position who happens to be a pretty good passer (his 4.8 assists per game last year, as a point guard, barely exceeds Kobe Bryant's career 4.7 APG, and Kobe played SG more or less full-time*). So with Ball sliding into a full-time point guard role, which he's better at than virtually anyone in the NBA, including Russell, D'Angelo gets to move back to his natural position of SG while still retaining his solid passing skills.
(* I feel the need to note that Kobe's assist numbers are artificially low due to A) playing most of his prime in the notoriously assist-denying triangle and B) playing almost all of his career as a shooting guard and very little as a point guard. But remember back in January of '13 where he played point guard for three games and averaged 16.3 points, 8.7 rebounds, and 13.0 assists? And explained that if he so chose he'd be the best point guard in the game? And then that March, he put up 42/7/12 and 41/6/12 in consecutive games? Who DOES that? The point being, playing PG and playing SG are very different things, assists-wise.)
Playing Ball and Russell at the two starting guard spots (which the Lakers will absolutely do; Ball is a day-one contributor) pushes Jordan Clarkson to a backup role, which is a good thing; Clarkson is a solid bench player but shouldn't be starting for an NBA team that hopes to contend. And while there's always the chance that he pulls an Isaiah and breaks out three or four years down the line, at this point chances are better that he never improves past bench player. Which is fine.
At the 3, the Lakers' future is Brandon Ingram. It is not Paul George. I referenced earlier in the article how the Lakers very rarely build around free agents, and I linked there to an old post of mine showing this to be the case. Of course that's not actually an argument against getting George, which I'll get to in a moment. First, the argument for sticking with Ingram: He's one of the most gifted young players in the league, with a huge wingspan, a great basketball IQ (albeit not Ball-level), enormous potential on both offense and defense, and the gift of youth--he's still only 19, about two months older than Ball. People who expect players to have a huge impact their first year in the league are usually forgetting that most of the guys who did that generally played three or four, and at least two, years of college before the draft. Those are important developmental years that are now happening after players are drafted. I expect Ingram to dominate within a couple years.
Now the case against George. I don't think he's a bad player, or even a mediocre player. My philosophy is to never pay mediocre players big contracts (cough Luol Deng and Timofey Mozgov), but this certainly doesn't apply to George. And if and when he comes to the Lakers as a free agent, he'll probably be a young 29. There are still prime years after that. But there aren't very many, and there's no guarantee the Lakers are going to contend before this core is in their mid-to-late 20s themselves. At that point George will be in his mid-30s and not contributing much for the money he'd be getting.
But more importantly, I think George might stunt our core's growth. He's made it clear that he would want to play SF for us, to the extent that positions are a thing. But how are we supposed to play Ball, Russell, and Ingram around him? Does Ingram play the four (being skinnier than Kevin Durant)? Does he come off the bench (the future of our franchise)? Do we push George to the four, against his wishes, and probably end up blowing the whole thing up Dwight-style? This isn't a great argument against getting George, but it's at least worth considering.
The bigger philosophical problem is that basing your future plans around getting a free agent who has, at best, expressed interest (he's not exactly Carmelo Anthony forcing a trade to the Knicks) is a terrible idea, especially for the Lakers, who really don't sign very many big free agents. (I think people remember those '04 signings of Karl Malone and Gary Payton as being a lot better than they actually were. Them plus Shaq leads to everyone forgetting that, hey, the only other big free agent the Lakers have ever signed was Jamaal Wilkes.) What if George, like virtually every other free agent who's expressed interest in the past decade and a half, decides not to come? If we've been planning on George coming, we're left in the lurch. If we haven't, we can go ahead and win a championship with our young core regardless.
You don't base your future prospects on free agents. You accumulate player capital, you draft or trade for talent, you build your team, you retain your stars, you avoid bad deals, and maybe you get lucky and land a nice free agent. That's how you win in this league. Signing Paul George is a loser bet, and not just because there's a decent chance it doesn't pay off. It's a violation of the foundational philosophy of winning in the NBA.
Moving on. The other relevant Lakers to consider are Randle, Nance, and Zubac, but I don't have as much to say about them. Randle has improved pretty impressively over his time in the league, and I think having an elite passer like Ball distributing will help him get much better looks on offense. Nance I see as primarily a defensive contributor, and I'm not sure where Zubac is going to end up, as a player. I could see him becoming a real contributor in the mold of Marc Gasol -- they are virtually identical physically: both are 7'1, both 265 pounds, both with a 7'0 wingspan -- or I could see him never becoming more than a role player. But either way, having a guy like Ball running the offense can only improve their performance, much like it improved the play of all of Ball's teammates at UCLA (and Chino Hills).
Wrap-up:
I should address the possibility that Ball is going to bust. I see how it could happen: His shot is a little unconventional (although it goes in), he doesn't have much experience creating shots or scoring from the midrange, his defensive potential is solid but not elite, and his father might be a significant distraction at the pro level. I freely acknowledge that Lonzo has a better chance of ending up an Anthony Bennett than, say, Markelle Fultz. But I don't think it's going to happen, and I think by now I've thoroughly explained why.
But more importantly, I believe that if you're picking top-two in a draft as stacked with talent as this one, you don't settle for the safe choice. Maybe it makes sense for Boston, who are currently down 2-1 in the Eastern Conference Finals against a great Cavs team, but it doesn't make sense for the Lakers, who earned their top-three pick with light tanking and good old-fashioned bad play. We need a superstar. We need a transcendent player. And I suspect that Fultz won't be that kind of player. I think Ball will.
This one is bold. Really, really bold. The Lakers finished with the third-worst record in the league last season, and they play in the very strong Western conference. They aren't poised to make any major free-agent signings (in fact, despite popular misconception, they almost never do). The west is an extremely strong conference and it shows no signs of slowing down.
Within the next two years, the Lakers will be facing the following teams: A Warriors team starring Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Kevin Durant; a Spurs team with Kawhi Leonard, Danny Green, LaMarcus Aldridge, and the walking corpses of Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and Pau Gasol; a Rockets team with James Harden and pals; a Clippers team that, while currently starring Chris Paul et al., will quite possibly implode this offseason (wait and see); a Jazz team on the upswing (+10 wins this year), led by (I'm hoping) this year's DPOY in Rudy Gobert, plus something called a Gordon Hayward; the Russell Westbrooks; the Memphis Grizzlies; a potentially good Blazers team with Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum; the Nuggets (I don't think they will be a threat though); a Pelicans team with the disastrous duo of DeMarcus Cousins and Anthony Davis; the Miserable Mavericks; and if you think the Timberwolves' core is actually good (Karl-Anthony Towns, Ender Wiggin--once he gets good enough to deserve that nickname, Ricky Rubio, and Zach LaVine) then the Timberwolves. That's a lot of teams, several of whom are good.
I'm not going to try to predict the future, because things like Derrick Rose and Isaiah Thomas happen all the time. No one knows what franchises are going to take off with no warning or collapse into dust. But Lonzo Ball is a phenomenally gifted basketball player whose greatest attribute is that he improves his teammates' performance more than just about any point guard since Magic Johnson.
The Lakers have a young, raw core: D'Angelo Russell, who, despite the popular misconception that he is a "point guard," has actually been playing out of position for his entire pro career (he is a shooting guard); Brandon Ingram, who is very long and extremely talented (moreso physically than Lonzo, but less so BBIQ-wise) but hasn't quite figured out how to play yet, like a German Shepherd puppy trying to walk on its oversized paws; Julius Randle, who has teeny little T-Rex arms but who is inexplicably a pretty good basketball player; Larry Nance, Jr., who is athletic and actually good at defense; Ivica Zubac, whose name is pronounced "Ivitsa Zubats" and who is a surprisingly precocious center; Jordan Clarkson, who is a guy; and some other players. This motley crew is not very good right now; they finished, as I mentioned, third-to-last in the league, and although they probably underperformed a little because of the whole tanking thing, they didn't underperform by all that much. And while they showed a few flashes of brilliance (remember this game?), overall they did not impress.
But Lonzo Ball changes things. He is a magic player with a genius-level basketball IQ. He has the potential to turn all those guys from the preceding paragraph into All-Stars and strong role players. The Lakers were 17th in offense last year (slightly worse by ORTG). That's roughly as bad as the Bruins were (116th out of 351 by ORTG) before Ball showed up and turned them into the best offense in the country (2nd in PPG, 1st in ORTG). And before you jump on the defense train (which is reasonable; the Lakers are currently terrible at defense), you should know that Ball took the Bruins from 249th to 157th in DRTG. Some of that might be due to an easier schedule, or all of it might be. But I'm selectively choosing to credit Ball in order to support my own preconceived notions about his value to his team. The offense, though, is indisputable.
Weakness 3: LaVar Ball.
Unlike seemingly everyone else in the country, I don't have a problem with LaVar Ball. He's passionate and greedy and trying very hard to profit off of his son's success, but that's not any worse than anyone else involved with the NBA at any level. The reason I have LaVar as a weakness is because, as far as I can tell, the Lakers front office might actually have some concerns about him; they're reportedly talking with the coaching staff at UCLA to make sure he wasn't too disruptive to the team.
I don't think he will be. I think this whole thing is a concerted effort to A) get Lonzo to the Lakers, B) get his name (LaVar's) into the public eye, and C) polarize the world with respect to Lonzo. Polarization is absolutely key to getting the kind of success and fan loyalty that can make Lonzo an endorsement superstar. Nobody wants to sign Gordon Hayward to a billion-dollar deal (sorry for picking on him but he's just the most unremarkable top-tier player I can think of). I don't think LaVar actually gives a damn about what the Lakers do, and I definitely think he's smart enough to realize that if he doesn't shut up and leave the Lakers alone, his son will end up somewhere that's not LA.
There are only three ways I can think of that Lonzo won't be a Laker next year. First, if the Celtics take him. Second, if the Lakers fuck up horribly and decide that some other player is a better prospect or (shudder) a better fit. Or third, if they think LaVar will be a sufficiently large distraction to counteract the relative benefits of drafting Lonzo. This makes LaVar Lonzo's biggest weakness.
Strength 3: Fit.
When you're drafting a top-two draft pick (as the Lakers have in each of the past three drafts, including this one), you don't draft based on fit. You just don't. You would rather pull a Sixers and draft twelve elite big men and no guards than to draft based on fit and miss out on a superstar for your well-fitting role player. So when I say that Lonzo fits beautifully with the Lakers, I want to make it clear that this isn't a reason to take him. The reason to take him is all the stuff above: he's a basketball genius, he tremendously improves his team without dominating the ball, and he might be one of the best passers ever. Fit is just gravy.
That being said: Lonzo fits beautifully with the Lakers. As I mentioned, D'Angelo Russell is not really a point guard, he's a shooting guard playing out of position who happens to be a pretty good passer (his 4.8 assists per game last year, as a point guard, barely exceeds Kobe Bryant's career 4.7 APG, and Kobe played SG more or less full-time*). So with Ball sliding into a full-time point guard role, which he's better at than virtually anyone in the NBA, including Russell, D'Angelo gets to move back to his natural position of SG while still retaining his solid passing skills.
(* I feel the need to note that Kobe's assist numbers are artificially low due to A) playing most of his prime in the notoriously assist-denying triangle and B) playing almost all of his career as a shooting guard and very little as a point guard. But remember back in January of '13 where he played point guard for three games and averaged 16.3 points, 8.7 rebounds, and 13.0 assists? And explained that if he so chose he'd be the best point guard in the game? And then that March, he put up 42/7/12 and 41/6/12 in consecutive games? Who DOES that? The point being, playing PG and playing SG are very different things, assists-wise.)
Playing Ball and Russell at the two starting guard spots (which the Lakers will absolutely do; Ball is a day-one contributor) pushes Jordan Clarkson to a backup role, which is a good thing; Clarkson is a solid bench player but shouldn't be starting for an NBA team that hopes to contend. And while there's always the chance that he pulls an Isaiah and breaks out three or four years down the line, at this point chances are better that he never improves past bench player. Which is fine.
At the 3, the Lakers' future is Brandon Ingram. It is not Paul George. I referenced earlier in the article how the Lakers very rarely build around free agents, and I linked there to an old post of mine showing this to be the case. Of course that's not actually an argument against getting George, which I'll get to in a moment. First, the argument for sticking with Ingram: He's one of the most gifted young players in the league, with a huge wingspan, a great basketball IQ (albeit not Ball-level), enormous potential on both offense and defense, and the gift of youth--he's still only 19, about two months older than Ball. People who expect players to have a huge impact their first year in the league are usually forgetting that most of the guys who did that generally played three or four, and at least two, years of college before the draft. Those are important developmental years that are now happening after players are drafted. I expect Ingram to dominate within a couple years.
Now the case against George. I don't think he's a bad player, or even a mediocre player. My philosophy is to never pay mediocre players big contracts (cough Luol Deng and Timofey Mozgov), but this certainly doesn't apply to George. And if and when he comes to the Lakers as a free agent, he'll probably be a young 29. There are still prime years after that. But there aren't very many, and there's no guarantee the Lakers are going to contend before this core is in their mid-to-late 20s themselves. At that point George will be in his mid-30s and not contributing much for the money he'd be getting.
But more importantly, I think George might stunt our core's growth. He's made it clear that he would want to play SF for us, to the extent that positions are a thing. But how are we supposed to play Ball, Russell, and Ingram around him? Does Ingram play the four (being skinnier than Kevin Durant)? Does he come off the bench (the future of our franchise)? Do we push George to the four, against his wishes, and probably end up blowing the whole thing up Dwight-style? This isn't a great argument against getting George, but it's at least worth considering.
The bigger philosophical problem is that basing your future plans around getting a free agent who has, at best, expressed interest (he's not exactly Carmelo Anthony forcing a trade to the Knicks) is a terrible idea, especially for the Lakers, who really don't sign very many big free agents. (I think people remember those '04 signings of Karl Malone and Gary Payton as being a lot better than they actually were. Them plus Shaq leads to everyone forgetting that, hey, the only other big free agent the Lakers have ever signed was Jamaal Wilkes.) What if George, like virtually every other free agent who's expressed interest in the past decade and a half, decides not to come? If we've been planning on George coming, we're left in the lurch. If we haven't, we can go ahead and win a championship with our young core regardless.
You don't base your future prospects on free agents. You accumulate player capital, you draft or trade for talent, you build your team, you retain your stars, you avoid bad deals, and maybe you get lucky and land a nice free agent. That's how you win in this league. Signing Paul George is a loser bet, and not just because there's a decent chance it doesn't pay off. It's a violation of the foundational philosophy of winning in the NBA.
Moving on. The other relevant Lakers to consider are Randle, Nance, and Zubac, but I don't have as much to say about them. Randle has improved pretty impressively over his time in the league, and I think having an elite passer like Ball distributing will help him get much better looks on offense. Nance I see as primarily a defensive contributor, and I'm not sure where Zubac is going to end up, as a player. I could see him becoming a real contributor in the mold of Marc Gasol -- they are virtually identical physically: both are 7'1, both 265 pounds, both with a 7'0 wingspan -- or I could see him never becoming more than a role player. But either way, having a guy like Ball running the offense can only improve their performance, much like it improved the play of all of Ball's teammates at UCLA (and Chino Hills).
Wrap-up:
I should address the possibility that Ball is going to bust. I see how it could happen: His shot is a little unconventional (although it goes in), he doesn't have much experience creating shots or scoring from the midrange, his defensive potential is solid but not elite, and his father might be a significant distraction at the pro level. I freely acknowledge that Lonzo has a better chance of ending up an Anthony Bennett than, say, Markelle Fultz. But I don't think it's going to happen, and I think by now I've thoroughly explained why.
But more importantly, I believe that if you're picking top-two in a draft as stacked with talent as this one, you don't settle for the safe choice. Maybe it makes sense for Boston, who are currently down 2-1 in the Eastern Conference Finals against a great Cavs team, but it doesn't make sense for the Lakers, who earned their top-three pick with light tanking and good old-fashioned bad play. We need a superstar. We need a transcendent player. And I suspect that Fultz won't be that kind of player. I think Ball will.
