Drafted with the second pick of the 2017 NBA Draft, Lonzo Ball has been considered to be the Lakers' point guard of the future. Specifically, Magic Johnson and the Lakers selected Ball to reignite the history of the Showtime Lakers generation. Rightfully so, Ball's exquisite play-making and passing skills ranks him in the same category as the player Johnson once was, but he will have to develop extensively to lead the Lakers to the same success.
Although Ball is not known for his scoring ability, he is quite useful for the Lakers. At 20 years old, Ball essentially runs the Lakers offense and will continue to do so in the future. Though, there appears to be one metric that Ball is underrated in, which seems to be on the defensive end.
On Wednesday against the Magic, Ball recorded an impressive block against seven-foot Nikola Vucevic.
Lonzo Ball recovers for the denial!#LakeShow #NBARooks pic.twitter.com/6TF1RkGC29
— NBA (@NBA) March 8, 2018
Standing at 6'6 inches, Ball is just like Johnson. Both are over-sized points with a defensive advantage over their smaller opponents. In this case, Ball blocked a player much bigger than he is. Ball's defensive exploits may not have been documented this season, but it has been mentioned briefly by Lakers head coach Luke Walton, per Josh Martin of Lonzo Martin.
“Just Zo being back, 1. for the way that he pushes and gets everyone involved, 2. guys want to get out and run, and we know to get out and run we have to get deflections and steals and get stops, and 3.
Zo is a pretty good darn defender himself, so he anticipates great, he gets deflections, he uses his length to challenge shots,” Walton explained.
Apparently, Walton has already figured out that Lonzo Ball has the potential to be a pretty good defender in this league. It's now up to Ball to get better in that area to give his team an advantage moving forward.
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