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In many ways, Lonzo Ball’s third season with the New Orleans Pelicans mirrored that of Brandon Ingram’s third season with the Los Angeles Lakers. In L.A., Ingram pieced together moments that resembled that of what would come in New Orleans this season, but couldn’t string together those performances consistently before his season came to an end due to injury.
While an injury didn’t end Ball’s season in New Orleans, a slow start gave way to some of the best basketball of his career over a roughly two-month span before a global pandemic shut down sports.
In Ingram’s fourth season in New Orleans, he did finally put everything together and it led to an All-Star appearance and the Most Improved Player award. Ball is looking to mirror that trajectory himself as he heads into his fourth season as well.
In Malika Andrews’ piece for ESPN on Monday in which Ball announced his agency switch from Roc Nation Sports to Klutch Sports, he also included a team goal of making the postseason and an individual goal of earning a trophy.
“Once we get in the playoffs, we take it one game at a time. For myself, I think Most Improved Player is definitely something I can get next year.”
This isn’t the first mention of Ball and the Most Improved Player even despite the off-season hardly having started for the Pelicans. Damian Lillard tweeted earlier in the month that he expected Ball to be one of the players to make a leap next season.
Even this season, Fox Sports New Orleans analyst Nancy Lieberman made a case for Ball to earn Most Improved Player in late February. Had the season not come to a close, Ball could have potentially made a run and received votes for the award given how he was playing at the time the league halted.
There are many reasons to believe Ball could make a run at the Most Improved Player next season. First, for the first time in his career, he will have an off-season in which he is fully healthy and has already been filmed working out with fellow Klutch client Trae Young.
Secondly, Ball already made a jump last season despite his limited availability in the off-season. His work ethic paired with the Pelicans coaching staff allowed him to improve greatly as a shooter even though he wasn’t fully cleared to play until the start of training camp.
Being healthy and working hard aren’t guarantees to Ball improving in the off-season and he’ll have to work on the right aspects of his game, but if he is able to iron out some of the issues from last season, he could be in store for a huge season.