Los Angeles Lakers head coach Luke Walton believes changing Lonzo Ball shooting form would be silly.
Los Angeles Lakers rookie point guard Lonzo Ball is having a pretty solid play four games into the season. The second overall pick in this year’s draft is averaging a near triple-double of 11.5 points, 9.0 rebounds, and 9.0 assists per game for the purple and gold.
The knock, however, is in his shooting efficiency. Ball is shooting only 31.6 percent from the field and just 22.7 percent from beyond the arc. He also struggled with his shooting percentage back in the preseason and summer league games.
His highly criticized shooting form could be the culprit of such poor shooting efficiency, but through all of that, his head coach, Luke Walton isn’t about to change Ball’s shooting style.
After the Lakers’ practice on Tuesday, Walton was asked about the matter and his answer was no via Mike Breshnan of Spectrum Sportsnet.
Lonzo’s unique shooting style won’t be changed.
— Mike Bresnahan (@Mike_Bresnahan) October 24, 2017
“For us to try to mess with it would be silly,” Luke said, b/c “the ball goes in the net.”
The ball isn’t finding the bottom of the net regularly yet, though, as evident in his shooting percentage but Walton could be right on this one.
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Ball has found success with his shooting form in college basketball when he played for UCLA. The 6-foot-6 point guard shot 55.1 percent from the field and 41.2 percent from beyond the arc in 36 games.
Time, perhaps, is all that Ball needs to translate such shooting efficiency at the NBA level. Again, he has only played four NBA games and that’s too small of a sample to push the panic button and do some adjustments in his awkward shooting form.
For now, while his shooting efficiency isn’t there yet, Lakers fans can take solace in the fact that Ball was able to help his team in other ways like rebounding and assisting.
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Ball’s game isn’t measured by his shooting efficiency, after all. As a pass-first type of point guard, the yardstick is on his playmaking and thus far, he is doing a pretty solid job in that area.