Only one player currently on the Los Angeles Lakers roster was nominated for an award for Monday night at the first annual NBA Awards show. That player was none other than Larry Nance Jr.
It came as no surprise that the 24-year-old forward was one of the nominees for the NBA’s Dunk of the Year along with a few of the other high-flyers in the league like Zach LaVine and Victor Oladipo. Although LaVine and Oladipo had impressive dunks, many assumed Nance would come out on top.
Unfortunately for Nance, it didn’t turn out that way with Oladipo taking Dunk of the Year honors. After the winner of the award was officially announced, Nance took to Twitter with a priceless tweet to express his thoughts:
— Larry Nance Jr (@Larrydn22) June 27, 2017
Ironically, the dunk in which Nance was nominated for, which may not have even been his best dunk this past season, was at the expense of his new teammate, Brook Lopez. The veteran center was traded to the Lakers earlier this week in a deal involving the Lakers sending D’Angelo Russell and Timofey Mozgov to the Brooklyn Nets.
With the Lakers taking Lonzo Ball out of UCLA with the No. 2 pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, Nance could be in the running for this award many times in the future regardless of the outcome this year. Ball’s pass-first mentality and ability to throw jaw-dropping lobs to his teammates could have Nance wide-eyed thinking about the possibilities of posterizing opposing players on a nightly basis for the purple and gold.
Unfortunately, Nance won’t get to run the floor and be the recipient of lob passes from Ball until the start of the 2017-18 NBA season. Lonzo will play for the Lakers’ Summer League team next month in Las Vegas, but Nance will be sitting out after as he heads into his third season with Los Angeles.
