[jjj10manParticipant]

 Has anyone else been suprised by how good Lonzo Ball has been on defense this year? Seriously, he looks like a lite version of what he was on defense for Chino hills.

 

  His defensive real plus minus is 1st among starters, His defensive rating is 105 (Lakers are 107) and he is a one and done rookie who are known for being the worst defenders in the league usually. 
 

Also his stat line since December 12 Pts 7 Rebs 7 Ast 2 Stls 1 Blk 42% FG 37% 3pt 50% FT

IMO, he would have been frontrunner for ROTY last year and could end up top 4 in the race this year. 

It seems like as soon as the hype died down he started playing well, and because of his playing style, I think he projects better than any rookie this year outside of maybe Fultz. 
(Simmons has the shooting abillty of Shaq his rookie year)

(Tatum doesn’t have Lonzo’s upside)

[OhCanada-Participant]

 Lonzo’s a beast. He’s gonna be a very good player for a long time in this league. Once his nerves settle and he gets used to everyone talking about him all the time which is hard time which is tough his shot will start falling as well.

[SeattleSuperChronicsParticipant]

 I’m not surprised at all. After seeing him in person playing for UCLA. I knew this dude was going to be a beast. His length and IQ makes him incredible on the defensive end. All these haters out here talking how Fultz was hands down the better prospect silent now. Lonzo is the best PG to come out since Kyrie and already a better pure point than kyrie.

[EndlessknightParticipant]

How can you possibly judge Fultz vs Ball at this point? It was be like claiming Ingram is better Simmons at this point last year. Just like everyone was too quick to write off Ball people are doing the same to Fultz.

[ChoppyParticipant]

 Simmons is a better prospect than both Ball and Fultz. And Simmons is a better PG than Ball, so I don’t know what you’re smoking.

[Andv1 WaitingParticipant]

Not disagreeing with you but thoughts on these questions:

 However is Ben better than Ball right now or later?

Right now Simmons looks more polished in some ways but the question I have for you is this:

What happens if Simmons never gets a jumper?Or if his jumper is worse than Balls?

Is his Defense truly better than Balls right now?

Does he make his team overall better or is that more Embiid?

Because if you think about this for a second: Lonzo at least is trying to improve his shot and not stick to one area just because he is good there-Sort of like if all he did was pass and All Simmons does is drive to the Rack…Which is showing he wants to improve his overall game and not just do the status quo and stay the same which it doesn’t appear as apparent yet in Simmons is like he is afraid to have people critique his shot or take some risks to improve his overall game… 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ChoppyParticipant]

 No question Embiid is impacting the team in a greater way than Simmons at the moment. 

Yes, I think Simmons is better now and will be later as well. His defence is also superior to Ball’s (based just on the ‘eye’ test). 

We don’t know what Simmons jumper is like because no one has seen it. Would he be shooting similar percentages to Ball if he were taking shots from deep? The thing I would ask in return is would Philly be better or worse off if Simmons stopped going to the rack and began jacking up 3’s? Assuming he’d been practising an could hit at a similar percentage to Ball from 3, would that be a help or a hindrance to Philly? I personally think they’d be worse off. So it makes no sense for Simmons to start shooting from deep til he’s confident in his shot (which may never come). Thankfully, he’s good at what he does and should only get better. 

[ChrispyParticipant]

 Michael Carter Williams  , 2.0. (for fair play, I’m a Ball hater, and only partially because of pops).

 

[CU.LIONSParticipant]

 I almost stopped reading the rest of this thread once I read that "Lonzo ball has more upside than Tatum" smfh

[jjj10manParticipant]

 Tatum is limited by his athleticism and is shooting and has no passing ability. 

Lonzo’s celling is best rebounding PG, best defensive PG, best passing PG, and 20 PPG which will probably be a triple double

[whiteflashParticipant]

 I’m wondering how many people actually watch these games? Ball gets weakside blocks and passing lane steals, and will occasionally get a straight up block on his man, but otherwise gets TORCHED on D. The Lakers always put KCP on the other teams main ball handler to mask Ball’s defensive shortcomings. Take yesterday; KCP guarded Smith (who still dropped 17 in the first half) the majority of the game, but Smith held Ball to 9pts on 4-13 and 1-7 from 3, and when Ball guarded Smith he couldn’t do ANYTHING. 

Ball definitely has potential as a defender due to his length, but claiming he’s anything more than mediocre right now is silly.

 

[XYRYXParticipant]

There is not one single day where someone is trying to tell me how great Lonzo Ball is. Yes he seems to be beyond his historic awful shooting slump but his game is full of holes and I just can’t stand this whole debate anymore. He might be the nicest kid in the world despite being raised by this idiot of a father but he is not a very good basketball player at this point. 

He plays 34 minutes as a rookie, needs 11 FGA per game to score 10 points. Hasn’t attempted one single free throw attempt over the last 6 games and still shoots below 50 percent from the line. He has no clue how to get to the basket and score on a layup. I haven’t seen one single not awkward looking floater or layup attempt by this dude. maybe he is not the worst defender in the league but overall there is just nothing about his game that really impresses me. Almost every point guard in the league could duplicate his numbers if given 34 minutes a game minus one or two rebounds maybe. He has nice vision yes but he is for sure the most overrated pick over the last couple of years. It’s also funny that almost everyone telling how great Lonzo is is assuming his horrible shooting is just to go away and his inability to score inside doesn’t exist. For sure he will get better but to be honest there is almost no way to be any worse. I really get the feeling the Lakers will regret taking this guy this high and for sure will regret labeling him the face of the franchise this early. 

 

[IndianaBasketballParticipant]

I like Lonzo from a team defense standpoint, but his on ball defense still needs work. Some of the more quicker guards just blow right past him. 

Offensively, I see some improvement from him using ball screens and just reading/reacting to the defense. He needs to get with a trainer other than his dad this summer lol. I love how he moves the ball quickly, advances the ball, etc, but he just needs to get A LOT better using ball screens in the half court. 

Shooting/scoring wise, I think he needs to change his mechanics. With him shooting from the left side of his body, it makes him predicatable. Clearly, if he he’s driving right, it won’t be to shoot smh. It’ll either be for a layup or the pass. He can only pull up for the jumper driving left. His best move is his stepback, but he can’t even use it driving right since he’s loading the ball from the left side. 

I like him though. Just think he needs to get away from training with his dad this summer and get with a legit NBA trainer. Drew Hanlen, Tyler Relph or even DJ Sackmann. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Andv1 WaitingParticipant]

 Things we can confirm so far:

He will not win R.O.Y due to missed games and the bad streak at the start. He will have the same sort of Rookie year as Ingram but with a little more good consistentcy. I could see that Going to one of 4 players: Taytum,Simmons,Lauri M or Donovan Mitchell. Due to them being more consistent and not having missed much time this season.

His offense will get better-People forget the guy has never played P N R offense until he got to this level and looks like he is slowly but surely improving on that end.The shot will improve but he needs that Shoulder to be 90-100% before the mechanics he is working on stick as he will revert at times due the previous injuries..That streak pre shoulder injury and altering of his shot proved he can hit when he gets a look..

Defense: Does he get burned by surper quick guards yes he does every one thought it would be worse than this even,but overall he bodies up well-See Harden back down block by lonzo for what I mean,he is pretty good on help defense and is better than most expected.

Passing he is mainly pretty strong at this but there are two catches this his team mates need to finish more(this will improve with time or better team mates) and he needs to occasionally not try the flashy pass/jump in the air pass.

Lakers are definitely worse with out him out there…

Overall I think he will have a pretty good career if he doesn’t get injured/become injury prone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MopgrassParticipant]

 Tatum should be rookie of the year. Simmons has been great, but Tatum has been one of the better defenders and shooters in the whole league (according to stats). Ball looks like the 2nd best pick. He picks pockets well, knows when to challenge, and knows where to be on the court. I’ve seen a lot of games, but not a lot of guys blow by him. That was Lou Williams last year. Really, I people don’t want to like him because his father is awful. I didn’t like Lonzo’s “I’ll play for anybody “ comment. LA is lucky to have Walton. No one else wanted to coach there when Luke was a hot commodity. 

Since the team needs shooting so bad, it would’ve been interesting if they kept D’Angelo Russell. Probably not enough ball to go around.

 

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