Los Angeles Lakers guard Lonzo Ball has had an up and down start to his NBA career, with enough demonstrations of his strengths to appease his fans and enough flashes of weaknesses to fuel his haters.
The highly-hyped rookie ranks sixth in the NBA in assists with 7.7 per game, an extremely impressive number for a first-year player. However, he’s also 15th worst in the league in turnovers per game, at 3.5 currently. Ball is also shooting just 31.1 percent from the field and 28.1 percent from three.
While Ball’s start has been polarizing, former Lakers forward and newly-named South Bay Lakers player development coach Metta World Peace thinks fans should be patient with the promising young guard via TMZ:
“He’s young. He’s two or three games in. It takes time,” World Peace said. “You got to give him some time. You can’t judge him off his first game either way. You’ve got to give him some time to grow, let him have some fun… He’s four games into the league. You’ve got to give him three years, then see where he’s at.”
Young players don’t normally “pop” right away, and Ball has actually shown more than a lot of highly-touted rookies show in their first few games. His vision already stands out at the NBA level, and while he’s shot really poorly so far, it usually takes rookies a while to adjust to shooting at the NBA level.
Ball should never have been expected to be a superstar right off the bat, and anyone expecting as much was being unreasonable. Whether or not Ball eventually pans out or not, World Peace has been around long enough to know that no one will know how Ball’s career will turn out just a few games in.
Fans are just going to have to wait and see how he plays instead of jumping to conclusions.