Los Angeles Lakers: 3 members of the “young core” who fit this roster

Lonzo Ball

With the 2nd overall pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, the Los Angeles Lakers selected Lonzo Ball, point guard, out of UCLA.

In hindsight, the Lakers maybe should have taken Jayson Tatum at this position.

Lonzo came to the Lakers with a significant amount of hype, most of the hype was self-inflicted due to his father LaVar’s propensity to be the loudest voice in the room. LaVar proclaimed that his son was the next coming of Magic Johnson, that he would guarantee a championship with the Lakers right away and that he would be on par with Michael Jordan before his career is all said and done.

While LaVar’s confidence in his son and his abilities must be commended, he was cashing cheques that Lonzo simply couldn’t cash.

Lonzo came into the league as an elite passing prospect, capable of making incredibly difficult passes look easy, he was expected to be the next Magic Johnson for the Lakers. Having turned the UCLA program around overnight, huge things were expected of Lonzo.

While Lonzo never truly reached the heights that were expected of him, he is still a fantastic young player with an incredible amount of upside.

Currently, with the New Orleans Pelicans, Lonzo is forming a stellar partnership with Rookie sensation Zion Williamson that could be a lethal 1-2 punch for the next decade.

So what could Lonzo now bring to the purple and gold?

Since leaving the Los Angeles Lakers, Lonzo has stepped his game up in all aspects.

His 3-point shooting and his unusual shooting form have been fixed and he is hitting the 3-point shot at a borderline elite level at 38.3% This would provide the Lakers with elite shooting beside Danny Green and would give the Lakers one of the best 3-point shooting backcourts in the NBA currently.

Lonzo will also bring you elite defense and length at the point guard position. Standing at 6″6, he is capable of defending 1-3 easily and since coming into the league has shown a real knack for picking players’ pockets, deflecting the ball and forcing his man to take bad shots.

Alongside Danny Green, Lonzo would form a defensive guard pairing that would be hard to rival. With the perfect combination of length, foot speed, defensive prowess and an ability to make their man take bad shot attempts, it is with high probability that this pairing would have been extremely effective together.

A crunch time line-up of:

• PG Lonzo Ball
• SG Danny Green
• SF LeBron James
• PF Anthony Davis
• C Dwight Howard

Would be incredible defensively and extremely difficult to stop offensively.

Lonzo came into the league as an elite passer and that skill set remains.

Having Lonzo back on the Lakers would still allow for LeBron to be the lead playmaker but it would give him potentially the best secondary playmaker in the entire NBA for when LeBron is either off the floor or wants to get his own buckets.

Lonzo also would bring a change of tempo to the Lakers which could throw teams completely off.

The LeBron led Lakers are the 3rd slowest offense in the league according to NBA.com, with Lonzo at running the offense for the New Orleans Pelicans, they are the fastest offense in the league by a sizeable margin.

Being able to switch into that gear at any time would put the opposing teams on the back foot immediately due to them not knowing when the Lakers are going to switch things up.

Another bonus would be Kyle Kuzma.

Kuz has played his best basketball with Lonzo as his point guard, if Lonzo was to take a hold of the 2nd unit, you could expect for Kuz to potentially get back to the form that had fans of the purple and gold excited.

A second unit of :

• PG Lonzo
• SG Caruso
• SF KCP
• PF Kuzma
• C McGee

Would be exciting and would play teams off the floor.