LaVar Ball's dream closer to becoming reality: LiAngelo gets pro workout with Lakers
Fans of the Los Angeles Lakers have been excited about the possibility of such NBA luminaries as LeBron James and Paul George joining the team as free agents, restoring the happy times they previously enjoyed under such legends of the sport as Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal and Magic Johnson.
In reality, however, their team just agreed to work out a guy considered by every other team in the league as a sub-NBA-level talent but whose bombastic father seems to believe is a Hall of Fame prospect.
That’s right. The Lakers are giving an actual pro predraft workout to LiAngelo Ball.
The Lakers already have been burned once by the over-promised and under-delivered Big Baller magic. In his rookie year, No. 2 overall pick Lonzo Ball shot just 36 percent from the field, 30.2 percent from 3 and 45.1 percent from the free throw line.
Of the 307 rookies in the past 10 seasons to play at least 50 games for their team, Lonzo’s true shooting percentage (a measure that takes into account the relative difficulty of 2’s, 3’s and free throws) is the 18th worst, and of the 17 players who were worse, only Anthony Bennett was also a top-five pick in the draft.
LiAngelo is considered to be the weakest Ball brother in terms of his basketball skill set — worse than the second-worst high-profile rookie of the past decade, who is on the team that is giving LiAngelo a workout.
The Lakers announced the six players who will get a pro workout at their practice facility Tuesday ahead of the draft, where Los Angeles will be picking 25th and 47th overall and looking to find a player who will turn out like Paul Millsap (drafted 47th in 2006) or Mark Price (25th, 1986).
#LakeShow draft workouts will pick up again following the Memorial Day holiday with six more prospects visiting the @UCLAHealthTC pic.twitter.com/pnQeKDQlZ6
— Los Angeles Lakers (@Lakers) May 26, 2018
It’s entirely possible, even likely, that the Lakers are just doing this as a favor to the Ball family, both staying in LaVar’s good graces should they decide to extend Lonzo’s contract after his rookie deal is up and also grabbing the inside track in case LaMelo Ball, the youngest brother and another one considered to have at least some pro potential, has the chance to fall to them in the draft when he goes pro.
It’s also possible, though far less likely, that the Lakers might use that 47th pick, a second-rounder with no guaranteed contract attached to it, to draft LiAngelo, send him to the South Bay Lakers of the G-League, and see if the spark of talent that got LiAngelo 12.6 points per game on 41.5 percent shooting from three-point land for BC Prienai-Birstonas Vytautas in Lithuania in 2017-18 can turn into something more.
After all, most second-round players simply wash out of the league, but if you have the chance to get someone who has the same impact as guys like Draymond Green, Millsap or Manu Ginobili, all of whom were second-round picks, it’s as worth a chance as anything.
Furthermore, even if LiAngelo doesn’t make the Lakers, he’ll at least have NBA workout footage to send around Europe; he may have burned a bridge in Prienai-Birstonas as his Lithuanian team got relegated to the second division, but from Spain to Serbia and all points in between, there’s always a market for Americans who can make shots.
LiAngelo will just have to avoid the off-the-court issues that have so far plagued him and flagged him as a potential to be tarred with the infamous “character issues” brush.
The Chinese league is, after all, right out for him after the shoplifting incident in Shanghai that got him in hot water with UCLA and touched off the sequence of events that put him in Lithuania in the first place.
And teams in Europe might not want the theatrics of LaVar Ball around, especially the way things ended acrimoniously between the Ball family and the brass in Prienai.
And the Lakers themselves might get so sick of LaVar’s carping at management if they don’t draft LiAngelo that Lonzo might find that his very real NBA-level talents on defense and his dollar-store knockoff version of Russell Westbrook stats (Ball posted approximately 10 points, seven rebounds and seven assists a game and has triple-double potential on any given night) aren’t worth the salary they’re paying him once his rookie deal is up.
But for now, at least LiAngelo will get his chance to prove himself. If he’s got skills, now is the time for those skills to shine.
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