2017 NBA Draft is now a few hours away. It is a known
fact that this year’s edition will be much deeper than recent ones. The concept
of ‘deepness’ is generally constructed on the quality of names that expected to
selected on mid and late 1st round but draft’s main story lies on
top 10 (all-star candidates) and even top 5 (superstar candidates). The Los Angeles
Lakers, which will select in 2nd place, is naturally one of the best
actors of this process and their choice will be the most exciting thing because
‘Fultz for 1st pick’ is now kind of guaranteed after Celtics –
Sixers trade.
If you look the mock drafts, you are likely to
encounter at least five different names for 2nd pick. Nevertheless,
news that came from Lakers organization is a sign that they are limited their
options. De’Aaron Fox is an extraordinary athlete and a solid defender but his
offensive ceiling is pretty low. Jayson Tatum is a talented scorer but not the
right choice for the system that Luke Walton is trying to establish and he has
not even been called out to work-out by Lakers. Jonathan Isaac, Malik Monk and
Lauri Markkanen are players who will bring different qualities to the court but
it is doubtful that whether they are valuable enough for 2nd pick or
not. All these factors left behind 2 alternatives for Lakers: Lonzo Ball and
Josh Jackson. Until the night of June 20. Until the D’Angelo to Brooklyn trade.
Despite the debate as to whether this trade was the right choice for the team,
the dilemma in the draft selection came into a clear result. If any surprises
don’t happen, Lakers will select the Lonzo Ball on June 22nd and
yield up the playmaker position to a new name, after two seasons.
If you haven’t watched any UCLA games last season and
heard Lonzo’s name for the first time along with his father –like me- it’s
quite natural to get caught up in prejudice. It is true, with the BBB brand and
his magazinish statements, LaVar Ball managed to create his own agenda and
unfortunately Lonzo was dragged into that mess. Antipathy towards his father
overshaded Lonzo’s basketball skills but if you enter the Youtube and watch a
few videos of him, I can guarantee that you will forget all this drama quickly.
Ball’s court vision, passing skills, shooting ability and unselfish game style
is very impressive. Among these factors, the most valuable thing for me is the
last one, because the most helpful factor in breaking the prejudice that I have
created about him was that his game style that puts the team first. He has an
incredible assist rate without dominating the offense and a pretty high
shooting percentage without taking lots of shots. These combinations are both valuable
in terms for efficiency and his fit with Luke Walton’s system –a system that
targets maximum ball-player circulation and don’t want to be static-. Let’s
give some stats to explain his efficient game. He finished last year with %18.1
usage rate and %67.3 true shooting and these numbers are ignored by public
because of his unorthodox shooting style. When we compare him with this year’s
prospects, results are as follows:
At that point, his constancy along with style and his
pass-oriented game created the perception that ‘Ball is going to have problems
on shooting’ but as you can see, he is even better than Fultz, who takes credit
for shooting. %74 of his 3 point attempts and %52 of his around the rim attempts
are created with a pass and that also shows that he contributes to scoring
without occupying the ball too much.
One of the main reasons of him considered as a star
candidate is his ability to push the pace in transition. He is taller than an
average PG and with the help of that he can crash the board and observe the
floor better. Although he is not effective as Westbrook in grab&go’s but he
does a pretty good job in making the right choices on high tempo and rewarding
players who have done the right runs and cuts, %34 of his assists came in
transitions. It would not be wrong to say that Ball will be in a team that he
can use this skill when we assume that Lakers’ young core won’t have problems
on fastbreaks.
He also has some tools that can be used in half-court
offense. He finds the shooters in off-screens, he can create positions to his
teammates coming out of drive&kick’s and in addition to those, he has an
effective off-ball game and uses back-cut’s that end with an easy lay-up or
alley-oop many times. His isolations are getting criticized a lot but he has
1.21 PPP on iso’s, which is fairly good. He is at 98th percentile in
off-dribbling scoring and his %73 in around the rim finishes is not that bad at
all.
Ball’s most serious weakness on the offensive side is
his pick&roll game and it is not easy to create a counter argument against
that. His %32 turnover rate on pick&roll’s is very high and his court
vision in pick&roll’s is not as good as in transitions. When opponents
switch P&R’s, it can hardly be said that he turns that into an advantage.
To defend that Ball is not that unproductive in pick&roll’s, we have to
take the UCLA’s playbook as victim. According to the stats, UCLA’s main
mentality was to create positions to other players rather than ball-handler’s
shot attempt. When taking UCLA’s bigs that can knock down 3’s into account, it
is not possible to judge that. As a result of that, Lonzo has 0.86 PPP and %74
pass rate in P&R’s and after his arrival in LA, my hope that this partial
problem could be compensated was greatly diminished after D’Angelo was sent. The
only way out at the moment is that Walton needs to run more early offense
actions that relies on off-ball movement rather than standard pick&roll’s.
 |
| Lonzo Ball's offensive choice distribution |
On the defensive side, it's possible to compare
Lonzo's style to Brandon Ingram. His body can be considered as weak on the NBA
level, so he uses his length and athleticism to create a threat to opponent’s
passing channels and he establishes his main defensive activity on help-defense
positions. Even though he is not inadequate in 1 on 1 defense, it is not hard
to guess that he will be defeated by elite scorers.
Lonzo Ball has skills that can turn himself into an
elite player, as well as the deficiencies that can hurt him in the long run.
Now, it is time to ask the crucial question, as we know that his next stop will
be Lakers, is Lonzo Ball the right for Lakers? This question can be answered in
two ways: before D’Angelo and after D’Angelo. If DAR had been stayed on the
team, Lonzo’s pick&roll problems would not have been a big deal because he
would be playing along with a good P&R runner. Luke Walton has ran
pick&roll sets a little over the league average last season, an unexpected
situation for those who think that Walton would copy the system in the GSW to
the Lakers. It is uncertain whether this is a conscious choice or a necessity
arising from the fact that it is not an experienced roster that can play early
offense in high efficiency. Next season, it will be a necessity for him to give
up on pick&roll.
One thing is for sure, Lakers showed that they are
confident in Lonzo because instead of distributing responsibilities into
rotation, they left all the burden on his shoulders. Upcoming seasons will show
us that whether he can meet the expectations or not.
*References for stats:
NBA.com/stats
Basketball-reference.com
NBAMath.com
NBA.com/stats
Basketball-reference.com
NBAMath.com
-Translated from the original Turkish article that published on June 22, 2017.
