Luke Walton has always had the back of Lonzo Ball even when LaVar Ball, Lonzo's father, has ripped on him. Back in January, LaVar told ESPN that Walton had lost the team and needed to be let go.
“You can see they're not playing for Luke no more, Luke doesn't have control of the team no more. They don't want to play for him.”
“That's a good team, Nobody wants to play for him. I can see it. No high-fives when they come out of the game. People don't know why they're in the game. He's too young. He's too young. … He ain't connecting with them anymore. You can look at every player, he's not connecting with not one player.”
That was during a stretch that the Lakers were really struggling. But the Lakers are playing a lot better basketball now having won five straight and LaVar seems to be very quiet.
Lonzo Ball on Saturday night against the San Antonio Spurs hit six three-pointers including the go-ahead one with under 50 seconds left to play in the game that sealed it for them.
After the game, Luke Walton talked about how much Lonzo has improved, but also how he thinks that Lonzo was unfairly criticized by the media when his shot wasn't falling.
Walton on Ball's shooting: "I'm happy for him because I feel like he was being judged so hard to start the season. There is no other rookie getting dissected like he was and he was playing great and doing all the things we loved about him…He was just missing his shots."
— Tom Orsborn (@tom_orsborn) March 4, 2018
In 40 games this season, Lonzo is averaging 10.4 points, 7.1 rebounds, and 7.1 assists. Early in the season, he couldn't get the shot to fall for anything but he was still using his elite passing to get teammates open and affect the game in other ways.
With the shooting back now though, Lonzo is showing the Lakers and the rest of the NBA just how special of a talent he can be.
If he can continue to shot well, he can be an above average talent in this league. But even if he doesn't shoot well, the rest of his skill set makes him a good player.
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