Los Angeles Lakers President Magic Johnson is a legend never to be forgotten in the game of basketball.
While he wasn't known as the most dangerous sharpshooter of his era, he knew a thing or two about knocking down a shot and managed to end his career with a 52.0 field goal percentage. His lowest field goal percentage came as a 36-year-old at just 46.6.
That's why he doesn't mind offering a hand to rookie guard Lonzo Ball who has been struggling with his shot since the season began.
Ball will become a fantastic NBA player as long as he continues to work on his game, let's be clear on that. Even though he recently became the youngest player to post a triple-double last weekend, his shooting percentage stands at 31 percent for the season. That's in plain terms just awful.
There have been a few NBA players with unorthodox shots such as Kevin Martin, Shawn Marion, Bill Cartwright, Marcus Camby, and even Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. When a player has a shot that stands out that much, fans and talking heads always point to the mechanics of the shot if it isn't falling.
At UCLA, Ball shot the ball well from the floor hitting 41 percent of his shots from beyond the arc, and 55 percent overall. It's been a much different story with the Lakers and they aren't much of a rush to make him change his shot mechanic.
Johnson visited ESPN's Mike & Mike show Monday to discuss why he and the Lakers are staying hands off of Ball's shooting for the time being.
I think it’s a fine line because what you have to do is first, he’s been shooting that way his whole life. So what we wanted to do is let him play his game. Let him shoot the way he’s been shooting and hopefully they’ll go in. And so, we’re not gonna mess with it. We’re gonna let him shoot and play his game. If after the season, and he’s not shooting well, then we’ll sit down with him and say, ‘Hey, let’s maybe look at different way or let’s try to improve the way you are shooting.'
That's not to say they have no way of identifying and working on a fix for the problem because they can do that as he explained, but it's a matter of preference.
We can break it down with him, but we don’t want to mess with his shot. He’s proven that he’s knocked that shot down. And we want to encourage him to keep shooting.
One time this season has Ball shot over 50 percent in a game, which came in a loss against the Milwaukee Bucks where he netted a triple-double, so maybe he will begin to figure things out as the season progresses. As Ball once stated ‘I've played this way my whole life,' so maybe some encouragement along with some training and strength coaching will go a long way in his career.
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