Lonzo Ball’s first game in the NBA could not have been a worse matchup, as the Lakers’ young point guard had to go up with the league’s foremost antagonizer in Patrick Beverley. The Clippers’ newest addition took it as a personal challenge to welcome the much-heralded rookie to the Association and his goal for the evening was to “get into his ass.”
Beverley succeeded, rattling the Lakers top pick and setting up residence in his head. Ball was in desperate need of a bounce back performance, and the scheduling gods, one night after setting him up for failure, gave him the perfect opportunity for redemption on Friday night.
Ball and the Lakers went up against the Suns in their second game of the season. This is a Suns team that lost by 48 in their opener, giving up 124 points to the Blazers. If there were ever an opportunity for Ball to shine and look like the superstar in the making so many see him as, this was it. To Ball’s credit, he took that chance and shined, with a tremendous performance and put the Lakers on his back down the stretch in a 132-130 win.
Ball finished the game with 29 points, 11 rebounds, and nine assists, controlling the game in the way so many felt he could coming into the league. His patience and passing ability in pick-and-roll situations is beyond his years and against a soft Phoenix defense he found his shot and torched the Suns down the stretch. His highlight reel from this game alone ended up being three minutes long.
This performance led to a lot of puffing of chests from the Lonzo faithful who weren’t pleased with the general schadenfreude from the rest of the league after Beverley gave him the business in the opener. The reality with Ball is going to be somewhere in between these two performances. He’s going to have moments as a rookie that remind us of his youth and general inexperience in the NBA, especially at point guard which is the deepest position in the league, but also have these kinds of games where it all clicks and he looks like a superstar.
The Lonzo roller coaster is, like so much with the Ball family, likely going to get tiresome. Early on, every game will be a referendum on the young man’s skills and status in the NBA. If there’s anything to take away from his first two games, it’s that he’s got tons of ability and game, but a long way to go before he’s even a league average starting point guard. That’s exactly what you would expect from a rookie. So let’s enjoy it when he has monster games like this, understanding playing the Suns is very helpful, and try not to act like the sky is falling when he looks the part of a rookie point guard in the league when he faces significantly better competition.
