After an injury that ended his 2018-19 season early and an elongated break over the off-season, Lonzo Ball’s start to his 2019-20 season in New Orleans was slow. A string of games missed, first to a groin injury then to a stomach bug, further led to inconsistency.
But since Dec. 1, Ball hasn’t missed a game for the Pelicans as he has worked himself back into full health all while finding his groove on the court with the team as well. At the same time, the team began turning things around after a slow start that mirrored Ball’s personal struggles.
Ball and Pelicans teammate JJ Redick talked about the team’s struggles and what the turning point was both individually for Ball and as a team this season on Redick’s latest podcast episode.
Ball: “I don’t think I have a specific date or game. I just feel like just randomly we just started clicking. I felt like it started to get fun to play together, you know what I mean. Like we have a lot of pieces and we knew we had talent and stuff but I feel like at the beginning, it wasn’t clicking. Then I feel like, out of nowhere, it just started clicking.”
JJ: “Games right around, right before Christmas, we went on that West Coast trip. We started at the end of the 13-game losing streak with a win at Minnesota then we won a few more games on that trip. We come home and beat Houston and Indy on a back-to-back at home and then all of the sudden, pretty much from that point on, we were consistent in playing good basketball.”
Ball specifically talked about a putback dunk – over his own teammate nonetheless – he had against the Portland Trail Blazers on Dec. 23 as a night when he finally started to feel back to normal physically. Since that game, Ball is averaging 14.0 points per game and shooting 40.8% from range while handing out 8.2 assists, showing the numbers back up his claim.
It also falls in line with Ball’s claims throughout the year that getting his body back to full health has been the biggest difference in his improved play this season. It’s one of the longest stretches of games Ball has been healthy in his career, which has led to some of the best basketball of his career.
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