What does Lonzo Ball’s move to Klutch Sports mean for his Pelicans future?由asjkfj 发表在翻译团招工部 https://bbs.hupu.com/fyt-store
Klutch Sports.
The 22-year-old announced Monday he was signing with the powerful agency headed by Rich Paul. That alone is newsworthy because of the history Paul and his agency have with New Orleans after the Anthony Davis saga.
But the move further raised eyebrows because it came just a few months after Ball and his two younger brothers — LaMelo and LiAngelo — announced they were signing with Roc Nation Sports.
It’s rare to see a player change agents twice in four months. It’s rarer to see that kind of move from a player searching for an extension with his current team.
Negotiations for a new deal with Ball were always going to be complicated because of his unique style of play and the Pelicans’ rebuild.
With uncertainty surrounding how much money will be available under the salary cap next season, it’s too early for Ball or the Pelicans to take a stance on extension talks. But from what we’ve seen, most players making the move to Klutch are doing it for one of two reasons: They want to get paid or they want to get moved.
It’s unlikely Ball would be trying to pull out the nuclear option this early in the process. He still has too much to prove.
So how interested are the Pelicans in re-signing Ball to a new deal, and what do they think the terms of this contract should be?
It’s one of the most important decisions facing the front office this offseason. It could set them up for the future or set them back for years. It’s not easy to acquire a quality starting point guard without spending a lot of money or giving up serious assets.
Here are some of the pros and cons of keeping Ball around for the long-term:
Cons
The easiest case to make against signing Ball to a long-term deal is the argument that’s followed him since he entered the league: Will his shooting be a liability in big moments?
We’ve seen it repeatedly during the playoffs with Houston point guard Russell Westbrook or Oklahoma City forward Lu Dort. When a team has a perimeter player other teams can ignore in halfcourt situations, it not only disrupts the offense, it often saps the confidence of the player being ignored after he misses a few of the wide-open shots the opponent is begging him to attempt.
Ball made some serious strides with his 3-point shot this past season, and it forced teams to start defending him differently. In his first season with the Pels, he made nearly as many 3s (148) as he did in his first two years with the Lakers (165), and he shot a career-best 37.5 percent from deep.
It was clear the daily work he put in with Brandon Ingram and assistant coach Fred Vinson was building his confidence with his shot. The issue is it’s hard to tell which Ball was the one we should expect to see next season.
During the first half of the year, Ball still wasn’t confident in the ankle injury that ended his previous season prematurely. He was hesitant with his shot, he wasn’t moving around the same way and he was settling too often for contested jump shots instead of attacking the defense. He even lost his starting job late in December, but that’s also around the time when his shot started to come back.
From Christmas Day up until the season was shut down in early March, Ball averaged 14.2 points, 7.2 rebounds and 8.2 assists while shooting 41 percent from 3-point distance on 7.1 attempts a game. He went from being downright bad offensively to a crucial cog for a New Orleans offense on the rise.
Many thought this would be the version of Ball we would see moving forward. That was until he showed up to the NBA’s restart in Orlando and reverted back to being the weak link in the Pelicans’ offensive attack. He averaged a lowly 7.1 points in his seven appearances in the bubble and shot 28.1 percent on 3s, which included a 4-of-6 performance in his final game against Sacramento when New Orleans was already out of the playoff hunt.
He wasn’t just bad in the bubble. He was so bad that it had to shake the confidence of anyone who thought Ball being the Pelicans’ point guard of the future was a foregone conclusion.
But it’s not just about these stretches when the shooting goes hot and cold. That happens with most shooters during the course of a season. It’s his inability to establish a Plan B whenever his shots aren’t falling that’s concerning. Some of that is him being a young player still trying to gain a full grasp of his game. (Remember, he only has 162 regular-season appearances under his belt after all those ankle injuries in L.A.),
But there are some deficiencies in his game that need improving.
Ball distributes the ball differently than most of the pick-and-roll-heavy point guards. Even as one of the best stand-still passers in the league, Ball needs to become more of a threat to get to the basket when plays break down. Offensive sets tend to break down even more against the pressure of postseason defense, so having a point guard who can make something out of nothing becomes even more important later in the season.
However, Ball was one of the worst guards in the league this past season when it came to making plays off the dribble. Per NBA.com, Ball registered just 359 drives this year in over 2,000 minutes of playing time. The only other “guard” to play at least 2,000 minutes and come up with fewer drives to the basket was Tim Hardaway Jr. (271).
Ball was also sixth on his team in points in the paint (281) — slightly above E’Twaun Moore — and he shot 59 percent at the rim, according to Cleaning The Glass, which ranks him in the 47th percentile among guards.
On film, it’s apparent how much he lacks touch around the rim when you see some of the easy layups he blows. He’ll dodge opportunities at the rim often by passing out, and when he goes up he doesn’t look all that comfortable leading with his right or left hand.
Ball somehow only attempted 76 free throws in 63 games this season. That’s just a little over one free throw per game. That’s the kind of numbers you would expect from Kyle Korver, not a starting point guard. Plus, he’s shooting a woeful 48.7 percent from the charity stripe for his career, and that’s after making a career-best 56.6 percent in 2019-20.
For perspective, Ball has attempted 195 free throws in the first three seasons of his career. Zion Williamson has shot 178 free throws in his first 24 games.
It’s one thing to avoid your weaknesses, but there’s no way Ball should be this passive getting to the paint when he’s often the one controlling the offense. He’s got to diversify his game to be a more effective floor general, and it starts with getting more comfortable breaking down the defense off the dribble.
If he can’t do that, it’ll become much easier for quality opponents to defend him in big games, and it may force New Orleans to reconsider their options at the point guard position.
Pros
Based off what you just read, it may seem like I’m anti-Lonzo Ball in this argument. In reality, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
I’m a huge fan of the way Ball sees the floor and his ability to recognize a play before it happens. That’s a trait few point guards have in this league. He’s also one of the best options out there when you’re trying to build an offense based off pace and ball movement.
Sure, Ball can be unselfish to a fault at times. But he knows how to get his teammates involved, and his willingness to get them the ball forces them to play with greater confidence. When Ball is at his best, his teams tend to mirror his fast-paced, pass-heavy style of attack, which is exactly what New Orleans wants from its young, energetic squad.
So much of the great qualities in Ball’s game is hard to quantify with statistics. He’s capable of controlling the offense without dominating the ball for entire possessions. With high-volume scorers like Williamson and Ingram on the roster, there’s value in having a point guard who doesn’t need the ball all the time.
He also brings tremendous value defensively as a 6-foot-6 defender capable of matching up against just about anybody on the perimeter. He was a nice complement to Jrue Holiday in matchups when the Pelicans wanted to save their defensive ace, but Ball was also deadly as a weakside defender. His combination of quickness and length allows him to cover a lot of ground on the wing, and he’s one of the smartest in the league at recognizing when a ball handler is about to swing a pass to the opposite side of the court. He jumps on those like a cornerback playing in zone coverage.
But his greatest value to New Orleans may not be about what he can bring as an individual but how he helps his other teammates reach their ultimate heights. We’ve heard Ingram talk multiple times about the bond he’s built with Ball and how they’ve pushed each other daily to get in extra work and stay in the gym. Some of those late nights Ingram spent with Ball working on his game played a large role in the Pelicans forward’s ascension to Most Improved Player. Ball has expressed that his hope is to claim the Most Improved Player award after next season.
Their obsession with finding ways to improve will not only help each other, but it’ll set a standard for everyone else in the building to follow.
But most importantly, there’s nothing quite like the bond we saw between Ball and Zion this year. They only got to play a limited time together, but they still managed to generate a few magical moments whenever they shared the floor.
They weren’t empty highlights, either.
According to NBA.com, the Pelicans had a net rating of plus-9.8, a promising figure, when Ball and Williamson shared the floor. But in lineups that featured the rookie phenom without Ball, the Pelicans got outscored by a whopping 13.1 points per 100 possessions. It’s a relatively small sample size, but that’sa tremendous drop-off.
Zion’s individual numbers don’t necessarily dip without Ball, but there is a big shift in the way he gets his shots and how often they come in transition without his lead point guard out there.
Of course, we know all about those highlight-reel halfcourt lobs Ball loves to throw to Williamson. When those guys connect on those plays, it’s one of the most exciting visuals you’ll see at any NBA game. But their connection goes deeper than that.
Ball assisted on 70 of Zion’s 210 field goals this season. That’s right, one out of every three baskets Williamson made this year came off a Ball pass. There are times when we’re able to recognize how different the synergy is between certain 1-2 combinations, and it was hard not to notice with Ball and Williamson from the moment they started playing together.
Their chemistry helps them communicate on the court in certain situations without saying a word.
There are one or two times every game when Ball will identify something Zion sees or an area he’s trying to get to and they’re able to make it happen instantaneously. There isn’t a wave of the hand by Ball or a point at the rim by Zion — they just connect eyes and their instincts to take over.
After seeing all the point guards Anthony Davis went through in New Orleans, how fortunate is Zion that he found someone he could connect with at a high level from Day One?
Yes, parts of Ball’s game can make you cringe at times, but would it be smart to get rid of someone who makes the game so much easier for the future of the franchise?
If the No. 1 mission in the Crescent City is to build a roster capable of bringing the most out of Zion, I’m not sure how you can justify not giving Ball at least one more season with his favorite alley-oop partner to see what they can build.
Final answer
Here’s what some of the deals from the past few years look like for prominent point guards coming off their rookie contracts:
Based on comparable numbers, it seems logical for a Ball extension to fall somewhere between $15 million-$18 million annually. If we go off the Terry Rozier contract from last year, that figure probably isn’t enough.
With the possibility that the cap falls next year, maybe Ball decides he doesn’t want a new deal until the league is able to smooth things out financially going into the 2021-22 season. The Pelicans would still have the ball in their court because he’d be a restricted free agent. They passed on giving Ingram an extension and it worked out for everyone involved because Ingram had a career season; he stayed healthy all year; and he maintained a strong relationship with the front office/ownership despite not getting a deal.
That last part is where we’ve seen teams ruin their relationships with star players in the past. Some have viewed their organization’s hesitancy to offer an extension as a slight. And Josh Hart also is extension-eligible this offseason. Regardless of how talks go, it’s always important to ensure players feel valued.
But this doesn’t have to be complicated. If the Pelicans can wait this out, they should be able to maintain flexibility going into the highly-anticipated summer of 2021.
If Ball is becoming as impatient as hiring two agents in one summer suggests, they should negotiate the kind of deal that makes him happy and keeps the Zo-to-Z train rolling. We’ve seen how starting over with a new point guard every year worked out for the last regime.
Klutch Sports.
The 22-year-old announced Monday he was signing with the powerful agency headed by Rich Paul. That alone is newsworthy because of the history Paul and his agency have with New Orleans after the Anthony Davis saga.
But the move further raised eyebrows because it came just a few months after Ball and his two younger brothers — LaMelo and LiAngelo — announced they were signing with Roc Nation Sports.
It’s rare to see a player change agents twice in four months. It’s rarer to see that kind of move from a player searching for an extension with his current team.
Negotiations for a new deal with Ball were always going to be complicated because of his unique style of play and the Pelicans’ rebuild.
With uncertainty surrounding how much money will be available under the salary cap next season, it’s too early for Ball or the Pelicans to take a stance on extension talks. But from what we’ve seen, most players making the move to Klutch are doing it for one of two reasons: They want to get paid or they want to get moved.
It’s unlikely Ball would be trying to pull out the nuclear option this early in the process. He still has too much to prove.
So how interested are the Pelicans in re-signing Ball to a new deal, and what do they think the terms of this contract should be?
It’s one of the most important decisions facing the front office this offseason. It could set them up for the future or set them back for years. It’s not easy to acquire a quality starting point guard without spending a lot of money or giving up serious assets.
Here are some of the pros and cons of keeping Ball around for the long-term:
Cons
The easiest case to make against signing Ball to a long-term deal is the argument that’s followed him since he entered the league: Will his shooting be a liability in big moments?
We’ve seen it repeatedly during the playoffs with Houston point guard Russell Westbrook or Oklahoma City forward Lu Dort. When a team has a perimeter player other teams can ignore in halfcourt situations, it not only disrupts the offense, it often saps the confidence of the player being ignored after he misses a few of the wide-open shots the opponent is begging him to attempt.
Ball made some serious strides with his 3-point shot this past season, and it forced teams to start defending him differently. In his first season with the Pels, he made nearly as many 3s (148) as he did in his first two years with the Lakers (165), and he shot a career-best 37.5 percent from deep.
It was clear the daily work he put in with Brandon Ingram and assistant coach Fred Vinson was building his confidence with his shot. The issue is it’s hard to tell which Ball was the one we should expect to see next season.
During the first half of the year, Ball still wasn’t confident in the ankle injury that ended his previous season prematurely. He was hesitant with his shot, he wasn’t moving around the same way and he was settling too often for contested jump shots instead of attacking the defense. He even lost his starting job late in December, but that’s also around the time when his shot started to come back.
From Christmas Day up until the season was shut down in early March, Ball averaged 14.2 points, 7.2 rebounds and 8.2 assists while shooting 41 percent from 3-point distance on 7.1 attempts a game. He went from being downright bad offensively to a crucial cog for a New Orleans offense on the rise.
Many thought this would be the version of Ball we would see moving forward. That was until he showed up to the NBA’s restart in Orlando and reverted back to being the weak link in the Pelicans’ offensive attack. He averaged a lowly 7.1 points in his seven appearances in the bubble and shot 28.1 percent on 3s, which included a 4-of-6 performance in his final game against Sacramento when New Orleans was already out of the playoff hunt.
He wasn’t just bad in the bubble. He was so bad that it had to shake the confidence of anyone who thought Ball being the Pelicans’ point guard of the future was a foregone conclusion.
But it’s not just about these stretches when the shooting goes hot and cold. That happens with most shooters during the course of a season. It’s his inability to establish a Plan B whenever his shots aren’t falling that’s concerning. Some of that is him being a young player still trying to gain a full grasp of his game. (Remember, he only has 162 regular-season appearances under his belt after all those ankle injuries in L.A.),
But there are some deficiencies in his game that need improving.
Ball distributes the ball differently than most of the pick-and-roll-heavy point guards. Even as one of the best stand-still passers in the league, Ball needs to become more of a threat to get to the basket when plays break down. Offensive sets tend to break down even more against the pressure of postseason defense, so having a point guard who can make something out of nothing becomes even more important later in the season.
However, Ball was one of the worst guards in the league this past season when it came to making plays off the dribble. Per NBA.com, Ball registered just 359 drives this year in over 2,000 minutes of playing time. The only other “guard” to play at least 2,000 minutes and come up with fewer drives to the basket was Tim Hardaway Jr. (271).
Ball was also sixth on his team in points in the paint (281) — slightly above E’Twaun Moore — and he shot 59 percent at the rim, according to Cleaning The Glass, which ranks him in the 47th percentile among guards.
On film, it’s apparent how much he lacks touch around the rim when you see some of the easy layups he blows. He’ll dodge opportunities at the rim often by passing out, and when he goes up he doesn’t look all that comfortable leading with his right or left hand.
Ball somehow only attempted 76 free throws in 63 games this season. That’s just a little over one free throw per game. That’s the kind of numbers you would expect from Kyle Korver, not a starting point guard. Plus, he’s shooting a woeful 48.7 percent from the charity stripe for his career, and that’s after making a career-best 56.6 percent in 2019-20.
For perspective, Ball has attempted 195 free throws in the first three seasons of his career. Zion Williamson has shot 178 free throws in his first 24 games.
It’s one thing to avoid your weaknesses, but there’s no way Ball should be this passive getting to the paint when he’s often the one controlling the offense. He’s got to diversify his game to be a more effective floor general, and it starts with getting more comfortable breaking down the defense off the dribble.
If he can’t do that, it’ll become much easier for quality opponents to defend him in big games, and it may force New Orleans to reconsider their options at the point guard position.
Pros
Based off what you just read, it may seem like I’m anti-Lonzo Ball in this argument. In reality, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
I’m a huge fan of the way Ball sees the floor and his ability to recognize a play before it happens. That’s a trait few point guards have in this league. He’s also one of the best options out there when you’re trying to build an offense based off pace and ball movement.
Sure, Ball can be unselfish to a fault at times. But he knows how to get his teammates involved, and his willingness to get them the ball forces them to play with greater confidence. When Ball is at his best, his teams tend to mirror his fast-paced, pass-heavy style of attack, which is exactly what New Orleans wants from its young, energetic squad.
So much of the great qualities in Ball’s game is hard to quantify with statistics. He’s capable of controlling the offense without dominating the ball for entire possessions. With high-volume scorers like Williamson and Ingram on the roster, there’s value in having a point guard who doesn’t need the ball all the time.
He also brings tremendous value defensively as a 6-foot-6 defender capable of matching up against just about anybody on the perimeter. He was a nice complement to Jrue Holiday in matchups when the Pelicans wanted to save their defensive ace, but Ball was also deadly as a weakside defender. His combination of quickness and length allows him to cover a lot of ground on the wing, and he’s one of the smartest in the league at recognizing when a ball handler is about to swing a pass to the opposite side of the court. He jumps on those like a cornerback playing in zone coverage.
But his greatest value to New Orleans may not be about what he can bring as an individual but how he helps his other teammates reach their ultimate heights. We’ve heard Ingram talk multiple times about the bond he’s built with Ball and how they’ve pushed each other daily to get in extra work and stay in the gym. Some of those late nights Ingram spent with Ball working on his game played a large role in the Pelicans forward’s ascension to Most Improved Player. Ball has expressed that his hope is to claim the Most Improved Player award after next season.
Their obsession with finding ways to improve will not only help each other, but it’ll set a standard for everyone else in the building to follow.
But most importantly, there’s nothing quite like the bond we saw between Ball and Zion this year. They only got to play a limited time together, but they still managed to generate a few magical moments whenever they shared the floor.
They weren’t empty highlights, either.
According to NBA.com, the Pelicans had a net rating of plus-9.8, a promising figure, when Ball and Williamson shared the floor. But in lineups that featured the rookie phenom without Ball, the Pelicans got outscored by a whopping 13.1 points per 100 possessions. It’s a relatively small sample size, but that’sa tremendous drop-off.
Zion’s individual numbers don’t necessarily dip without Ball, but there is a big shift in the way he gets his shots and how often they come in transition without his lead point guard out there.
Of course, we know all about those highlight-reel halfcourt lobs Ball loves to throw to Williamson. When those guys connect on those plays, it’s one of the most exciting visuals you’ll see at any NBA game. But their connection goes deeper than that.
Ball assisted on 70 of Zion’s 210 field goals this season. That’s right, one out of every three baskets Williamson made this year came off a Ball pass. There are times when we’re able to recognize how different the synergy is between certain 1-2 combinations, and it was hard not to notice with Ball and Williamson from the moment they started playing together.
Their chemistry helps them communicate on the court in certain situations without saying a word.
There are one or two times every game when Ball will identify something Zion sees or an area he’s trying to get to and they’re able to make it happen instantaneously. There isn’t a wave of the hand by Ball or a point at the rim by Zion — they just connect eyes and their instincts to take over.
After seeing all the point guards Anthony Davis went through in New Orleans, how fortunate is Zion that he found someone he could connect with at a high level from Day One?
Yes, parts of Ball’s game can make you cringe at times, but would it be smart to get rid of someone who makes the game so much easier for the future of the franchise?
If the No. 1 mission in the Crescent City is to build a roster capable of bringing the most out of Zion, I’m not sure how you can justify not giving Ball at least one more season with his favorite alley-oop partner to see what they can build.
Final answer
Here’s what some of the deals from the past few years look like for prominent point guards coming off their rookie contracts:
Based on comparable numbers, it seems logical for a Ball extension to fall somewhere between $15 million-$18 million annually. If we go off the Terry Rozier contract from last year, that figure probably isn’t enough.
With the possibility that the cap falls next year, maybe Ball decides he doesn’t want a new deal until the league is able to smooth things out financially going into the 2021-22 season. The Pelicans would still have the ball in their court because he’d be a restricted free agent. They passed on giving Ingram an extension and it worked out for everyone involved because Ingram had a career season; he stayed healthy all year; and he maintained a strong relationship with the front office/ownership despite not getting a deal.
That last part is where we’ve seen teams ruin their relationships with star players in the past. Some have viewed their organization’s hesitancy to offer an extension as a slight. And Josh Hart also is extension-eligible this offseason. Regardless of how talks go, it’s always important to ensure players feel valued.
But this doesn’t have to be complicated. If the Pelicans can wait this out, they should be able to maintain flexibility going into the highly-anticipated summer of 2021.
If Ball is becoming as impatient as hiring two agents in one summer suggests, they should negotiate the kind of deal that makes him happy and keeps the Zo-to-Z train rolling. We’ve seen how starting over with a new point guard every year worked out for the last regime.
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