The Los Angeles Lakers first game of the NBA Summer League Las Vegas tournament is in the books, and it wasn’t pretty, they lost to the Clippers.
It has come to pass, the well anticipated first game with the new face of the Los Angeles Lakers, Lonzo Ball. The NBA Summer League game was sold out to a sea of Lakers fans waiting with baited breath for something to cheer about.
Lonzo Ball’s highlight was one crossover at the beginning of the game and a couple of rifle passes. The crowd went wild on the crossover but mumbled and grumbled and shook their heads for most of the game.
Ball went two-for-15 for the field and made only one out of 11 three-pointers. This is probably why he wasn’t shooting at the end of the game, but darn he could have slammed the ball home. Magic Johnson, Rob Pelinka and Luke Walton were all sitting courtside, and Magic was coaching from his seat.
The Lakers fans wanted to see Ball ablaze and but were more impressed with his family when they entered the arena.
Fans, you have to give it time, Lonzo’s shots weren’t falling, that happens. It has happened to him before. He is also getting used to a 24-second shot clock and his teammates.
To me, looking at the stats, Lakers fans are just plain biased... Blue, Wear, Bryant and Ingram Dominant, then Kuzma - Lonzo-5 assists pic.twitter.com/1Fqw8FqzG1
— Shereen Rayan - Sports Broadcaster/Writer (@SportsCrazee) July 8, 2017
Top scorers for the Lakers were Brandon Ingram with a whopping 26 points, then Thomas Bryant had an exciting 13-point outing. Bryant was a fan-favorite and his game was absolutely impressive. Bryant was followed by Vander Blue, the G-League MVP, clocked in with 11 points and was clutch getting to the line, he also played a lot of defense and racked up six fouls.
Vander did not get too much praise from Twitter at first, but as the stats came out it was clear fans claiming he hogged the ball were not studying the game. Blue is notorious for driving to the basket and drawing fouls from his opponents, that’s what his coach Colby Karl asks him to do and Karl was one of the assistant coaches on Saturday.
Next: 3 Reasons to be excited for Summer League
Travis Wear, from UCLA, had quite a sweet defensive game and added two steals and ten points to the Lakers total. In this first game of the Vegas tournament, experience proved out as the players with college and G-League experience is indeed important.