Lonzo Ball Missing Another Chance To Play De’Aaron Fox Is A Problem
By Keith Rivas
Lakers point guard Lonzo Ball will not play against the Sacramento Kings tonight.
ESPN reports that Lonzo Ball might miss the rest of the NBA preseason with ankle issues, but that’s not the bigger problem at the moment. The elephant in the room happens to be the anticipated matchup between Ball and fellow rookie point guard De’Aaron Fox.
Fox, a Kentucky alum, gave Ball trouble in the March Madness NCAA Tournament and might be one of the Lakers’ Achilles’ Heels this season. Before the draft, Fox was also rumored to be on the table for the organization as an option to pick outside of Lonzo Ball.
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Now that both have their respective teams in Sacramento and Los Angeles, the fact that Ball won’t be playing against Sacramento means that Fox will have the center stage all to himself to show what he’s capable of.
The idea of Big Baller Brand being challenged because of Lonzo Ball’s lack of ability to dominate over point guards, even some in his rookie class, is room for concern because even with a small sample size, the majority of the talk behind Ball is hype.
Until he proves in a regular season game that he can play like the point guard the Los Angeles Lakers desperately need, his legitimacy shouldn’t be just handed to him. Additionally, you’d have to think that eve he would agree that it shouldn’t be about any sort of handout at this stage in his game.
Personally, it’ll take a duel with De’Aaron Fox that Ball wins in smashing fashion before I am fully on board and eating what the Ball family is cooking. It’s clear that Lonzo’s father LaVar does care about the success of all of his sons, but even as the louder mouth in the situation, he knows that none of the concern will go away until Lonzo at least proves everyone wrong on the court.
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But now, it’s only a matter of days before we get our answer.