Lakers News: Julius Randle speaks highly of Lonzo Ball
By Keith Rivas
The latest Lakers news is about how Julius Randle approves of his new point guard.
During the time D’Angelo Russell spent with the Lakers, it was hard to gauge how much his teammates really liked him. At first, things were alright, but the growing pains began to kick in after it appears that he snitched on Nick Young.
That incident caused plenty of distractions for a young team just trying to make some noise and get back to business. As expected, it showed by how everyone starting treating Russell on the court.
Isolating him on both sides of the ball, not celebrating shots with him, and basically acting like he was a ghost as much as possible. Hopefully, that stigma doesn’t follow the young point guard to Brooklyn, but Los Angeles is on to bigger, better things.
Taking Lonzo Ball second overall in this summer’s draft, the Lakers let it be known that they’re in attack mode. Lonzo Ball showed in Summer League that he’s going to do everything that he can to make the entire team better.
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Scoring was an issue in his debut, but that problem was quickly resolved. Shortly thereafter, we saw multiple triple doubles come out of the kid and it resulted in a Summer League record for assists per game.
Julius Randle decided it was time to share how he feels about the new sheriff in town. Per a piece from ClutchPoints, the young forward said that Ball “makes everybody better” and can definitely play well.
How the Lakers handle Ball in his rookie season is critical to him having any growing and sustainable success with the purple and gold. The Lakers can’t be foolish here and act like another bad year is acceptable.
Some of the best players in the NBA will be free agents next summer. Randle’s comments go to show that Ball has the support of the team moving forward. This comes without regard to how his father, LaVar Ball, handles himself away from the court.
As long as the Lakers can separate their basketball operations from Ball’s personal life, things will be great for them. Convincing Julius Randle that the new point guard is better might not seem like such a shocking thing. But the reality is that without guys like Randle buying in, the young core won’t be able to do it’s job.
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And at the end of the day, that job is still to win games and bring home a ring.