Lonzo Ball has launched — The Lakers’ much-hyped rookie point guard kicked off the NBA preseason Saturday with 5 points, 8 assists and 7 rebounds in a nearly-full Honda Center in Anaheim against the Timberwolves. Ball had no competition for the starting point guard spot when camp opened and sold himself on his new teammates pretty quickly. Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN took a look at Ball’s initial steps in the NBA:
“I don’t even care about the [first] scrimmage,” said head coach Luke Walton, who described the team’s first foray into 5-on-5 play as “gross” and “sloppy.”
“Lonzo, he’s been great. He is [doing well] in the defensive work, he’s talking, he’s leading, he is giving effort, he’s coachable. For his first training camp, he is handling it very well.”
There will be growing pains to come for Ball. How will he shoot when defenses sag off him? How will the rookie fare on a nightly basis in a conference where elite point guards like Russell Westbrook, Stephen Curry, Chris Paul and Damian Lillard live? And how will his 6-foot-6, 190-pound frame handle the rigors of an 82-game season against grown men for the first time?
Ball has a lot of questions to answer. But the Lakers like what they have seen so far, with some even saying that all the hype surrounding Ball is legit.
“I think it is well-deserved,” veteran center Brook Lopez said. “When you have a player of his caliber, there is going to be that attention around.
“When you play with a pure point guard like that, it just makes things easier for everyone. He elevates players to a whole other level or two. He is so good at turning other players into impact players. He is going to be a transcendent talent like that.”
With one of the all-time greats mentoring him, Ball doesn’t seem to be fazed by anything. Surely, Ball has grown weary of the media attention; Johnson said all the rookie wants to do is get the season started.
But Johnson has contributed to the ballooning hype by talking up the point guard’s vision, leadership skills and what he sees in Ball’s future.
“He is a natural leader,” Johnson said. “When you won a state championship, turn UCLA around and [get it] heading in the right direction, he makes everyone around him better, but he also gives you a pass that you can score.
“Some other guy [around here] used to do that,” Johnson continued with a chuckle. “So we needed a leader on this team and we have one now. … I think [Ingram] and Lonzo will have a great chemistry, like myself and James Worthy used to have where I knew I could look at James and he knew. … I knew what was going to happen and he knew what was going to happen. And James got out on that wing and boy, there was nobody in basketball like James Worthy being out on that wing. It is going to be the same with those two guys.”
For the first three practice sessions of camp, Walton opted to have his team work largely on defense. The Lakers also worked on pounding the idea of running into every player’s head. The Lakers want to run after missed shots and even made shots. They want to run all the time to take advantage of Ball’s uncanny ability to push the ball up the court with beyond-half-court passes.
That was on display again when the team scrimmaged Wednesday evening. Just as he did when he became the MVP of the Las Vegas summer league, Ball took a couple of dribbles before firing a pass over half court to a sprinting Kuzma for an easy dunk. In helping the Lakers win the summer league championship, Ball often looked like a quarterback firing one-handed, pinpoint bombs over the heads of defenders and into his teammates’ hands for easy baskets.
“Oh man, he threw a full-court pass like we always do,” Kuzma said of the scrimmage. “It was a couple of dribbles up on the floor, [pass and] dunk.”
In Vegas, Johnson and general manager Rob Pelinka saw how Ball made passing contagious as he elevated a summer league roster. Now, the Lakers are banking on Ball doing the same with NBA talent surrounding him.
“Playing with better players is [only] going to enhance him,” Kuzma said.
Faried not fired up about role? — The Nuggets also opened preseason play Saturday with a win over the Warriors. There was lots of applause in the Rocky Mountains when the Nuggets signed Paul Millsap to a $100 million contract this summer but one pair of hands that did not clap belonged to Kenneth Faried. Not that Faried has anything against Millsap, but the two play the same position and Millsap has all but been handed the starting power forward spot (Millsap can, however, swing to small forward). The idea of coming off the bench, even though he has done it before, doesn’t appeal to Faried, who is under contract for two more years. Mark Kizla of the Denver Post examined the situation:
The Manimal is not a happy camper.
As the Nuggets get to work in preparation for the NBA season, Kenneth Faried stubbornly refuses to accept a reserve role and defiantly insists if Denver can’t give him the minutes on the court he deserves, there are 29 other teams in the league where he can go play.
“I’ll just put it out there for everybody. I’m not a bench player. I’ve been saying that for the longest. I’m a starter,” Faried said when I asked him about his status with the Nuggets. “I love to hear the crowd (when introduced as), ‘Starting at power forward, No. 35, Kenneth Faried.’ Yes, that’s me. One hundred percent, that’s been my whole life. And I’m going to fight for a starting position. I’m just not going to lay down and let somebody take it. ”
Hate to burst your bubble, Manimal, but you are no longer a starter.
The debate’s over. The power forward job belongs to Paul Millsap.
Period.
Everyone in town, including Nuggets coach Michael Malone, anticipates Millsap, named to the All-Star Game in four consecutive seasons in Atlanta before signing a three-year, $90 million deal with Denver, will become the alpha dog on a team seeking its first playoff berth since 2013.
Let’s just say Faried does not quite share the same enthusiasm for Millsap’s arrival. If the Manimal can’t be a major contributor in Denver, he is ready to move on to another NBA city.
“There are 29 other teams,” said Faried, whose contract with the Nuggets runs through 2019. “If this team doesn’t want, or respect me enough, to play me the minutes that I think I deserve to play, then I understand that. Hey, there’s 29 others. Maybe I’ll go somewhere else and do what I need to do there. But at the same token, I’m here in Denver, and I want to play Manimal basketball, no matter what, every time I step on that court.”
The basketball math does not bode well for Faried’s happiness. Figure it this way: Between center and power forward, Malone has 96 minutes of court time to allocate. Give Millsap 32 minutes per game and emerging star Nikola Jokic 30 minutes on a regular basis at center. Mason Plumlee, who recently agreed to a new three-year, $41 million deal, figures to get at least 22 minutes per night as the primary backup to Jokic and Millsap.
Well, that leaves a scant 12 reserve minutes per game for Malone to divide at power forward and center among Faried, Juan Hernangomez, Darrell Arthur and Trey Lyles. Something’s got to give.
Faried plays with a chip on his shoulder and wears his heart on his sleeve, major reasons why fans love him.
“If we don’t make the playoffs, then it’s a waste of a year,” Faried said.
He roars like a Manimal. But, too often, Faried acts like a diva when things don’t go to his liking.
It’s an uncomfortable situation. Sure, it might somehow work out without a nasty divorce and a hasty trade that sends Faried packing from Denver. But it’s hard to see how.
Is Budenholzer on board in Atlanta? — The coach is saying all of the right things about the new philosophy in Atlanta, yet only time will tell if Mike Budenholzer is fully engaged here in the Travis Schlenk Era. Schlenk was hired this summer when Budenholzer surrendered the GM duties that went along with his coaching duties, similar to what Doc Rivers did in LA. Bud built the Hawks into an Eastern Conference contender but was swept twice by the Cavs in the playoffs and did a steady nosedive the last few years. Clearly, Schlenk wants to reset the roster, which will surely result in plenty of losses. Michael Cunningham of the Atlanta Journal Constitution did a deep dive into the situation:
Judging by the questions each man got this week, there is interest in how new Hawks GM Travis Schlenk and coach Mike Budenholzer will coexist. That makes some sense because Schlenk now has the franchise-shaping power that Budenholzer once had. But it also seems there’s a perception that there’s no way Budenholzer is OK with Schlenk’s rebuilding plan and that this will cause friction between the two.
Both Budenholzer and Schlenk said they are on the same page, but that won’t stop outside speculation about potential rifts. Maybe I’m weird, but I’ve never had much interest in interpersonal front-office drama. Leaders have different personalities and styles. Roles change and evolve in professional sports, and at some point, all coaches and executives must adjust. Ultimately they are judged by the final product.
But, more than that, I think there’s a misconception about how rebuilding goes in pro sports. Front offices might “tank” for the lottery in the way they build the roster, but coaches and players don’t tank. It’s against their financial self-interest to do so and, in nearly every case, it also runs counter to their pride and sense of professionalism.
Budenholzer’s job is clear: Win games and develop his young players. Really, that’s always been his job. It’s just that the organizational focus has shifted more to the latter. Whether that’s what Budenholzer would rather do is beside the point because it’s what he’s being paid to do.
There are only 30 NBA head coaching jobs and multiple more people who want them. I can’t think of many coaches who are confident enough about getting a better gig (or even another gig) that they would risk the one they have by defying organizational goals.
I did cock an eyebrow when Budenholzer said that focusing only on coaching would “free me up to take a breath.” Surely, he’d rather still be running the entire basketball operations because who wouldn’t? But I believe Budenholzer when he said he has a “great passion for” coaching, and I believe him when he said he’s on board with the organization’s big-picture goals.
Said Budenholzer: “If you appreciate and actually enjoy and embrace the process — whether you are winning NBA championships or winning 60, 55 games, or you are in a different phase of your organization and you are growing and developing and laying the foundation for something that you think can be special — that process can be incredibly rewarding not just for coaches and players and everybody that is involved with it. If you are just focused on the end result, you are probably going to have a frustrating year. But if you embrace on what you go through every day and how you work every day, there’s a lot that can be taken from that.”
Surely Budenholzer would rather be chasing championships as a coach/top executive. But that’s no longer his job with the Hawks. I think he will do his best he to win as many games as he can with the team he’s got, while also staying faithful to the organization’s long-term plan.
