The Los Angeles Lakers are 7-10 and Lonzo Ball for the most part hasn’t been the guy the Lakers wanted him to be.
Right now his shooting isn’t helping his case for being in the lineup late in games, he’s not consistent enough. On one side Lonzo has his dad, who’s always in his corner, and he has his head coach Luke Walton who wants to put Lonzo in the best position for himself and the team.
Every now and then Lonzo will have a great game, record a triple double, look like a good point guard in the league. Then he has the nights were nothing is clicking the shot isn’t falling and he finds himself on the bench later in the game. Lonzo is shooting the ball terribly, 31.3 percent shooting from the field, and 22.8 percent from three-point range.
For LaVar Ball, it’s all about results,
“Go get the W. Do whatever it takes. That’s why I’m down here saying, ‘Rebound,'” he continued. “He’s been away from me too long. I see tendencies in his game—they’re trying to baby him a little bit.”
LaVar doing exactly what he should, supporting his son during the highs and lows. Before the Lakers drafted Lonzo, LaVar was all over town talking about his son, now it’s time to weather the storm. LaVar believes the Lakers don’t know how to coach his son. Brian Shaw recently spoke to Lonzo and asked of him to crash the boards more aggressively, but the Lakers and LaVar want to see that approach in other facets of the game. Maybe with his jump-shot, or getting to the basket etc.LaVar Ball said,
“They’re soft. They don’t know how to coach my son. I know how to coach him, I tell him to go get the victory. Stop messing around.”
Is there a problem between you and coach Luke Walton?
LaVar responded, “No, I have a problem with losing,”
Coach Walton responded,
“This is a great teaching moment … everybody in the NBA is good. Just because we beat a team twice doesn’t mean we’re better than they are.”
Now isn’t the time to go back and forth about how to do this and that. LaVar, let Luke do his job and LaVar keep being the cool dad you’ve been, but maybe take a backseat in the coaching department. It’s a long season and Lonzo will be fine.
Luke understands the grind and left us with this gem,
“As you’re building, you’re on that path. It’s never [smooth], It’s never just you get it and all of a sudden you don’t have slippage anymore. Every team goes through it.”
Luke continued,
“The important thing for us is that we learn from our mistakes, we keep our head up, we keep working and grinding away to get where we all want to be.”
Lakers play tonight at home versus the Chicago Bulls at 7:30 PM on NBA TV, let’s see how Lonzo reacts.