True Lakers Fans

He can't bang inside like Rambis, nor shoot 3s like Coop, but if Rambis, Coop and Rick Fox all combined to have a baby . . maybe it would be Lonzo Ball. Given the chance to draft all over again, would we still select him? I'm thinking no - however, the acquisitions of Randle, Kuzma, Ingram, Zubac and Hart more than make up for Lonzo's shortcomings and our apparently lessened expectations of him so far. Do the Warriors win their first title without Harrison Barnes, or David Lee? The pickup of Iguodala proved to be more decisive than the contributions of either Barnes or Lee in the long run - although each played very necessary roles and glued things together at times.

So Lonzo - despite his scoring at UCLA and all the hype surrounding his draft to his hometown Lakers - is no more than a "glue guy" for us right now. Rick Fox, Brian Shaw, Mark Madsen . . . it goes without saying that Kuzma, Hart, Ingram and now even Zubac have shown their big-boy heart and soul on the court. Will we see a breakout from Lonzo - a guy who LeBron lovingly (protectively) describes as "a complete player"? Or should we be ok with a RambisCoopFox frankenstein?

lakerevolution wrote:He can't bang inside like Rambis, nor shoot 3s like Coop, but if Rambis, Coop and Rick Fox all combined to have a baby . . maybe it would be Lonzo Ball. Given the chance to draft all over again, would we still select him? I'm thinking no - however, the acquisitions of Randle, Kuzma, Ingram, Zubac and Hart more than make up for Lonzo's shortcomings and our apparently lessened expectations of him so far. Do the Warriors win their first title without Harrison Barnes, or David Lee? The pickup of Iguodala proved to be more decisive than the contributions of either Barnes or Lee in the long run - although each played very necessary roles and glued things together at times.

So Lonzo - despite his scoring at UCLA and all the hype surrounding his draft to his hometown Lakers - is no more than a "glue guy" for us right now. Rick Fox, Brian Shaw, Mark Madsen . . . it goes without saying that Kuzma, Hart, Ingram and now even Zubac have shown their big-boy heart and soul on the court. Will we see a breakout from Lonzo - a guy who LeBron lovingly (protectively) describes as "a complete player"? Or should we be ok with a RambisCoopFox frankenstein?

I am having a tough time comparing Lonzo to any past Lakers. He is sort of like Coop but he can't shoot 3's like Coop. He Rebounds and plays D similar to Coop but Coop was a Good 3 point shooter. He isn't like Fisher either because Fish was a Good 3 point shooter. Lonzo is sort of unique IMO. He is like a poor mans Jason Kidd in reality because of his Passing ability, Defense, and Rebounding, I guess that is a compliment or is it? He is a Good player but not Very Good or close to Great.

3Peatkb24 wrote:I am having a tough time comparing Lonzo to any past Lakers. He is sort of like Coop but he can't shoot 3's like Coop. He Rebounds and plays D similar to Coop but Coop was a Good 3 point shooter. He isn't like Fisher either because Fish was a Good 3 point shooter. Lonzo is sort of unique IMO. He is like a poor mans Jason Kidd in reality because of his Passing ability, Defense, and Rebounding, I guess that is a compliment or is it? He is a Good player but not Very Good or close to Great.

There's no need to compare him. He's being one helluva a trooper adjusting to a role alongside LeBron that he isn't necessarily suited for. I am sure he would get into much more of a rhythm on offense if he was in charge of organizing the offense. For the time being, he is making great passes, setting the best screens for LeBron on the perimeter and working on his shooting, which has been poor to inconsistent. At his size, with his speed and athleticism, I expect him to learn how to finish well over time, too. Remember, he missed the summer tending to his knee injury, but is getting stronger and healthier every day and hasn't missed any games yet this season, so knock on wood.

HAVING SAID THAT, it is undeniable that he is the best perimeter defender on the team and if the Lakers continue to keep Brandon Ingram as the shooting guard, those two will give opposing backcourts and wings fits for years with their length and instincts, especially Lonzo's instincts on the defensive end. The most foolish thing the Lakers could do is trade this unique talent. I still think that he will be the best of the young core as he matures. So all this Lonzo hate out there is puzzling to me as is the non-recognition of his potential. I just don't get it.

KobeMVP888 wrote:

3Peatkb24 wrote:I am having a tough time comparing Lonzo to any past Lakers. He is sort of like Coop but he can't shoot 3's like Coop. He Rebounds and plays D similar to Coop but Coop was a Good 3 point shooter. He isn't like Fisher either because Fish was a Good 3 point shooter. Lonzo is sort of unique IMO. He is like a poor mans Jason Kidd in reality because of his Passing ability, Defense, and Rebounding, I guess that is a compliment or is it? He is a Good player but not Very Good or close to Great.

There's no need to compare him. He's being one helluva a trooper adjusting to a role alongside LeBron that he isn't necessarily suited for. I am sure he would get into much more of a rhythm on offense if he was in charge of organizing the offense. For the time being, he is making great passes, setting the best screens for LeBron on the perimeter and working on his shooting, which has been poor to inconsistent. At his size, with his speed and athleticism, I expect him to learn how to finish well over time, too. Remember, he missed the summer tending to his knee injury, but is getting stronger and healthier every day and hasn't missed any games yet this season, so knock on wood.

HAVING SAID THAT, it is undeniable that he is the best perimeter defender on the team and if the Lakers continue to keep Brandon Ingram as the shooting guard, those two will give opposing backcourts and wings fits for years with their length and instincts, especially Lonzo's instincts on the defensive end. The most foolish thing the Lakers could do is trade this unique talent. I still think that he will be the best of the young core as he matures. So all this Lonzo hate out there is puzzling to me as is the non-recognition of his potential. I just don't get it.

If I had to lean toward trading him or not, I would not. I think he is Good and plays a solid role with LeBron by his side. So I have no hate toward him, I just wonder if he will actually ever be an all-around Great player? His Defense is very important as you have pointed out and I love his ability to get a Rebound and a lead a fastbreak. When it comes to the REV, he sounds like he isn't sold on Lonzo at all and REV has been watching like us for 40+ years and his opinions are well respected. An example of a TrueFan that thinks he is tradable.

3Peatkb24 wrote:If I had to lean toward trading him or not, I would not. I think he is Good and plays a solid role with LeBron by his side. So I have no hate toward him, I just wonder if he will actually ever be an all-around Great player? His Defense is very important as you have pointed out and I love his ability to get a Rebound and a lead a fastbreak. When it comes to the REV, he sounds like he isn't sold on Lonzo at all and REV has been watching like us for 40+ years and his opinions are well respected. An example of a TrueFan that thinks he is tradable.

I respect everyone's opinions in here. There are many Lakers fans who feel the same way that Rev feels; I just vehemently disagree with them. I'm also a bit biased because I loved Lonzo's game at UCLA, but he way he has adjusted to his role playing alongside LeBron James is extremely admirable, especially because that entailed taking the ball almost completely out of the hands of a pure pass first point guard. Lonzo has adjusted to his role almost from the start. Kuz has made the adjustment, but it took him longer and required the least amount of adjusting. All he had to do was learn to share the ball a bit more and move without it. He has also improved defensively almost since Day 1, so I give him a tremendous amount of credit as well. Brandon Ingram has the toughest adjustment to make because not only was he asked to switch positions, but for a player who thrives best with the ball in his hands, it has been difficult for him. He's coming around, too. Josh Hart didn't have to change a thing, so he's been Josh Hart and we have recently seen how Ivica Zubac is almost automatically better with LeBron and/or Rondo on the floor. So never mind what I believe to be the ridiculous thought of trading Lonzo, frankly I hope the team stands pat and grows together. That includes KCP and even Lance. The tweaks can be made come free agency unless someone is serving us Anthony Davis on a platter, but that simply ain't gonna happen before the end of the season.

Rondo put the entire team on his back when Bron went down. Not Lonzo. The Warriors made a huge run from 15 down to cut it to two, and Rondo was dishing it to everyone AND getting Curry-like buckets inside and from deep his damn self. Maybe we need a Rondo-est Yard page. Was Lonzo resting, and why? The game was on the line. I didn't see too much Lonzo blocking shots and getting boards and facilitating buckets on the other end - what I saw was Rondo and Zubac and a few of our young core putting in work without Lonzo as a factor at all. Lonzo may be "talented" but he's defininitely not one of our strongest players and that makes him block-choppable. If we're throwing KCP, Ingram, Randle, Hart or Kuzma into trades, we have to scrape Lonzo off our windshield wipers as well.

lakerevolution wrote:Rondo put the entire team on his back when Bron went down. Not Lonzo. The Warriors made a huge run from 15 down to cut it to two, and Rondo was dishing it to everyone AND getting Curry-like buckets inside and from deep his damn self. Maybe we need a Rondo-est Yard page. Was Lonzo resting, and why? The game was on the line. I didn't see too much Lonzo blocking shots and getting boards and facilitating buckets on the other end - what I saw was Rondo and Zubac and a few of our young core putting in work without Lonzo as a factor at all. Lonzo may be "talented" but he's defininitely not one of our strongest players and that makes him block-choppable. If we're throwing KCP, Ingram, Randle, Hart or Kuzma into trades, we have to scrape Lonzo off our windshield wipers as well.

Luke goes with the hot hand and he would have been remiss to sub out Rondo. Besides, it was a playoff atmosphere, so Playoff Rondo made an appearance.

I was mad as hell (and I'm not going to take it anymore!) when Magic let Randle out of our grasps and I'm still pissed about it. (of course, I have no hair to pull) They could have figured out a way to sign both Randle and Rondo. They grudged about Randle before the season even started (remember, Nance started and Randle came off the bench until Randle played his way into the starting lineup).

Unless Lonzo is traded for a bona fide superstar, I'll be furious. Even if that guy is John Wall, it will eliminate the possibility of adding a third guy this summer and I would MUCH rather have Lonzo + that guy this summer than Wall + no one even close to Lonzo as a basketball player. But that's just me and my Lonzo-est homerdom!

3Peatkb24 wrote:Alot of winning has to do with Chemistry. I watch the Pacers and that team has perfect/Great chemistry. They all love playing with each other. I do not see that with the Lakers. To me the Lakers have more talent than the Pacers do. LeBron is better than Oladipo, and so on and so on. I would trade for Anthony Davis and include anyone not named LeBron, Kuzma, and Ball. I think a Big 4 of LeBron, Davis, Ball, and Kuzma would rule the roost if they find that Chemistry. I would have no problem giving the Pelicans Ingram, Hart, McGee, even Lance who just turned 28 = a proven Good Vet but he's young, and a slew of Draft picks in the next 2 drafts for Davis.

Is Lonzo, at this point, any more of a success than D'Angelo was, at his point? I'm sure most would say yes, especially because we're 4 games over .500 instead of 12 games under. My point is: Does Lonzo bring less to us in a trade because he's only valuable to us and not necessarily any other team, or are Ingram and Kuzma much more valuable because the league has clearly seen their potential to provide sauce to any team? Interjecting the names "Nance Jr." or "Clarkson" may help, for perspective - since LeBron was able to drag them with him to the Finals. And none of us (read: Kenny) wants to discuss the name "Randle", but again my point is that Lonzo hasn't yet (to me, anyway) achieved "untouchable" status, given his as-currently-compiled body of work.

In my perfect world, Lonzo (and a whole lot more) would go to the Pelicans for AD and Randle back. Are LeBron, AD, Randle, Kuzma and _______ better than anything else we could have potentially had? And, returning back to reality, does keeping Lonzo and putting anybody else up (for AD, or some other superstar and a side of fries) make us better? Are we grooming Lonzo to be . . what? LeBron's succesor in 3/4 years? Somebody explain it to me.

lakerevolution wrote:

3Peatkb24 wrote:Alot of winning has to do with Chemistry. I watch the Pacers and that team has perfect/Great chemistry. They all love playing with each other. I do not see that with the Lakers. To me the Lakers have more talent than the Pacers do. LeBron is better than Oladipo, and so on and so on. I would trade for Anthony Davis and include anyone not named LeBron, Kuzma, and Ball. I think a Big 4 of LeBron, Davis, Ball, and Kuzma would rule the roost if they find that Chemistry. I would have no problem giving the Pelicans Ingram, Hart, McGee, even Lance who just turned 28 = a proven Good Vet but he's young, and a slew of Draft picks in the next 2 drafts for Davis.

Is Lonzo, at this point, any more of a success than D'Angelo was, at his point? I'm sure most would say yes, especially because we're 4 games over .500 instead of 12 games under. My point is: Does Lonzo bring less to us in a trade because he's only valuable to us and not necessarily any other team, or are Ingram and Kuzma much more valuable because the league has clearly seen their potential to provide sauce to any team? Interjecting the names "Nance Jr." Or "Clarkson" may help, for perspective - since LeBron was able to drag them with him to the Finals. And none of us (read: Kenny) wants to discuss the name "Randle", but again my point is that Lonzo hasn't yet (to me, anyway) achieved "untouchable" status, given his as-currently-compiled body of work.

In my perfect world, Lonzo (and a whole lot more) would go to the Pelicans for AD and Randle back. Are LeBron, AD, Randle, Kuzma and _______ better than anything else we could have potentially had? And, returning back to reality, does keeping Lonzo and putting anybody else up (for AD, or some other superstar and a side of fries) make us better? Are we grooming Lonzo to be . . what? LeBron's succesor in 3/4 years? Somebody explain it to me.

I don't think Ball is untouchable but to me if we had LeBron, AD, and Kuzma for example, I think Ball would be a perfect Chemistry player playing with those guys. We need a PG regardless and Ball has good ball handling skills and he is a good passer, + he plays great defense. What the team would need then is 1 or 2 great shooters to really spread the floor with those guys. We should've went after Korver but the Jazz snagged him up.

Lonzo: 13 points on 6 of 14 shooting, including 1 of 6 from downtown . . and 0 - 4 from the FT line. A minus-20 with no steals and 2 rebounds in 31 minutes.

Meanwhile . . our point-forward Brandon Ingram went for 21/9/7 on 9 - 13 shooting with 2 blocks and a steal for a plus-16 in 39 minutes. Kuzma didn't shoot particularly well, either, but he went for 18/9/6. KCP and Hart came through like champions, rescuing the game when it looked like we were going to lose to the Queens again.

I'm going to form a one-man picket line in front of Staples, holding a "Bench Ball" sign.

Here's the link to the article I posted on the Laker Discussion page about Lonzo's problems, and why he may never become who he was hyped up to be. The article is one year old, but it sums up the key points:

https://medium.com/@relgitsjg/lonzoball ... 98992d60d8

Lonzo's season stats are trending DOWN compared to his career stats so far -- his minutes per game have dropped from 32 to 29 mainly because of LeBron, but his FT% has dropped from an already unacceptable 44.2% to a dismal 42.9%, which is much worse than Shaq, Tim Duncan or Dwight Howard. As a matter of fact, it's worse than the historically worst career free throw percentages of Wilt Chamberlain, Andris Biedrins and Chris Dudley. Only Ben Wallace, with a career FT% of 41.4, beats out Lonzo. All of these players were either near-useless duds, or so dominant at other aspects of the game that their horrible FT% was mitigated. Currently, Andre Drummond and DeAndre Jordan are shooting around 36% for their careers, but again they aren't 6' 6" 190 lb. point guards. If Lonzo doesn't find a way to get his FT% up to at least 52-55%, he'll never be the player he needs to be, and this may explain why he is so hesitant to drive aggressively into the paint - he fears going to the foul line. And if his only recourse is taking jumpshots, his FG% has to improve. Being a defensive specialist, grabbing a few rebounds and dishing a few no-look assists is cool, but certainly not why we drafted him with our first pick, right?

All his current season averages are lower than his career stats except for his FG% which rose from 37.9% to 40.8%, and his 3PT% which has risen from 31.5% to 33.1%. For his career he's averaged 10/6/6, but this year he's averaging 9/5/5, and his blocks are at 0.4 per game, down from a career 0.7.

I truly hope he finds a way to break out and become a more consistent, more aggressive, more productive player . . but so far it's just not looking like he has that "IT" factor. His young teammates all show fire, hustle, emotion and a focus on their craft, but Lonzo looks like a corpse out there on the court. He looks like he'd rather be playing lacrosse, or Call of Duty on XBox, or kicking his feet up with a hoodie on and some Beats by Dre headphones over his ears. If his current level of play continues into next season, I expect Luke, Magic and the rest to seriously consider moving him for whatever he's worth.

He's confused.

KobeMVP888 wrote:He's confused.

"Lonzo Ball puts up second goose egg of the season in Minnesota"

By Christian Rivas 

Lonzo Ball had a game to forget against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Sunday. While no one on the Los Angeles Lakers could get themselves going offensively, Ball was especially ineffective, scoring zero points in four attempts despite playing nearly 30 minutes.

One could point to his disappointing stat line and argue that it was just a bad game for the former No. 2 overall pick, but unfortunately, this isn’t the first time Ball has put up a goose egg this season.

When the Lakers faced off against the Orlando Magic in November, Ball scored zero points in five attempts. Ball has been held under five points on 11 different occasions this season. The Lakers are 6-5 in those games.

On most nights, Ball’s inability to score isn’t a huge issue, but with LeBron James and Kyle Kuzma, the team’s two leading scorers, sidelined, the Lakers need more from Ball offensively than what they’ve been getting as of late.

No, Ball wasn’t drafted for his elite scoring ability, but zero points in 22 minutes for an NBA player is hard to justify. Hopefully he can respond with a big night in Dallas on Monday.


lonzowire.usatoday.com/2019/01/06/lonzo-ball-final-stats-minnesota-timberwolves-la-lakers-highlights/amp/

Trying to trade Lonzo while he's out injured is the funniest part of this whole twisted debacle. A wasted draft pick.