Early in Lonzo Ball’s career, his play defensively is one of the reasons he was able to be an impactful player through his shooting woes in his first two seasons in Los Angeles.
As his jumper has improved, though, his defensive game might not be making the same strides. In a recent piece in The Athletic ranking the upcoming NBA free agents, Sam Amick and John Hollinger cited an anonymous scout that was not high on Ball’s defense.
“He’s just not an impactful defender (right now).”
Statistics still don’t do a great job of representing an individual player’s impact defensively. His individual defensive rating of 115.4 is one of the worst on the team this year, but there are plenty of ways to explain that away.
Most notably is that Ball and Eric Bledsoe’s minutes have been heavily linked this season. Of Ball’s 1,469 minutes this season, just shy of 1,000 of those have come with Bledsoe on the court and despite being a former All-Defensive team selection as recently as last year, Bledsoe’s defense has fallen off a cliff.
With Bledsoe on the court, Ball’s defensive rating is 117.6. In the 482 minutes he’s on the court without Bledsoe, his rating is a far, far, far better 108.1. For context, that would rank as a top-five defense without Bledsoe and the 29th-ranked defense with him.
That trend applies to effective every Pelican this year as Bledsoe’s own individual defensive rating is 116.0 this season, worst on the team. Without him on the court, the Pelicans have a 108.8 defensive rating as a team.
With defense being dependent on teammates, statistics need context. Often, that context comes in the form of film and, more often than not, the film suggests Ball is still an impactful player on that end of the court.
Put in situations where he could excel more, Ball could show more glimpses of the promise he showed on the defensive end of the court early in his career.
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