Everything We Learned From Lonzo Ball’s Pre-Draft Workout With The Lakers

The Lakers held the most anticipated draft workout west of Boston — who hosted Markelle Fultz earlier in the week — when they brought in Lonzo Ball for a pre-draft workout. The Lakers, who hold the No. 2 overall pick, have been connected to Ball since Lonzo’s father, LaVar, started trying to “speak it into existence” back in March by stating that he only wanted his son to play for the hometown Lakers.

Ball has, to this point, avoided workouts with other teams as he seems single-mindedly focused on playing for the Lakers — he is one of only two top prospects, along with Fultz, that has not worked out with the Sixers, who hold the No. 3 pick.

So, his workout with the Lakers was, for the most part, his lone audition for the only job he wants. So, how did it go? According to Ball, it went well. I mean, what else is he going to say, but that’s a good start. Ball told the media assembled at the practice facility (via Lakers.com transcript) there were a lot of shooting drills, working him off the dribble in pull up situations and such, likely to see how his shot held up with its odd mechanics to pulling up off the bounce.

“It was a lot of shooting, a lot of pivots, a lot of pull-ups — typical shooting drills,” Ball said.

When asked about his unorthodox form, Ball gave the old “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” response.

“As long as it works, I’m going to keep using it,” said Ball.

While the workout focused on his shooting and putting that to the test — his passing acumen is well-documented and known — he also tried to show that he can impact the game at multiple levels on the defensive end as a versatile on-ball defender.

“I think I’ll be fine defensively in the league,” Ball said. “I think I can guard one through three.”

Ball is a 6’6 guard, so his size and length certainly provide options for who he guards on defense in the backcourt, although defending bigger threes might be a bit of a tall order for him. The presumed No. 2 overall pick was also asked whether he feels like he is the best player in the draft, to which he, unsurprisingly, said he did.

“I think I am,” Ball said when asked if he’s the best player in the draft.

Ball also noted that it was a thrill to meet Lakers president of basketball operations Magic Johnson.

“It was a blessing,” said Ball. “Best point guard to ever play. Me being a point guard, I looked up to him my whole life. To finally get a chance to meet him, it’s just a blessing.”

He also said Magic gave him some pointers on things he can work on to improve, but didn’t divulge any details.

“A lot of stuff I can do on the court, how to help guys off the court,” Ball said. “And he’s the best point guard to ever play, so I can learn a lot of things from him.”

Not much of what Ball had to say about his workout came as a surprise, and, as you can see from his responses, where his father is a talker, Lonzo doesn’t say very much. The biggest surprise is that the Laker hopeful did his workout while wearing the adidas Harden Vol. 1 — the shoe he wore at UCLA — rather than his own shoe, the Big Baller Brand ZO2. This drew some snark from Bill Plaschke, and there is visual evidence of him in the Hardens, rather than the ZO2s.

We know there are physical copies of the ZO2 in existence, because he wore them in the debut video, but for whatever reason he’s not ready to rock them on the court just yet. As for LaVar, the patriarch of the Ball family — and the most outspoken of them all — was not at Lonzo’s workout, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a topic of conversation. Lonzo was asked if the Lakers spoke to him about his father, and he insisted that the organization said they liked LaVar, squashing doubts that the Lakers were considering passing on Lonzo in order to avoid dealing with LaVar.

The best quote from Lonzo was when he was asked if he went to Laker games as a kid and said no, explaining that LaVar didn’t like how small the seats were.

“I never went to the games,” Lonzo said. “My dad didn’t really like the seats because I guess they’re too small for him. I usually just watched in the living room with him.”

So, there you have it. Lonzo enjoyed the workout, thought it went well, and maybe the solution to the issue of keeping LaVar Ball from being a distraction is to keep the seats in Staples Center small to dissuade him from coming to games.