Los Angeles Lakers: Why Lonzo Ball should be untouchable this offseason

1. The massive impact his defensive efforts have on the team

The biggest criticism of Lonzo Ball, outside of his outlandish father (which Ball is putting behind him) was his efficiency on the offensive side of the ball. While there was no doubting that Ball could run an offense and was an elite distributor, his funky jump shot did not lead to scoring results, which ultimately led to some upset fans.

Ball did get slightly better in that regards in his second season and is bound to make more improvements as time goes on and he matures as a professional. It is not his scoring or his jump shot that fans are excited about, it is his impact on the defensive side.

Ball proved even more in his second year than his rookie year that he is an elite defender in the making. He showed serious signs of being a future All-Defensive player in this league and he is already making a massive difference on this team.

Just look at how bad the Lakers played after Ball got hurt, even when LeBron James returned from his groin injury. More times that not, the Lakers lost those games because of extremely poor defensive efforts that otherwise would have been better with Ball.

LeBron is not getting any younger and will not be getting better on defense and the rest of the roster is not the best defensively. It is not an easy thing to find an elite defensive player that is not a sacrifice on the offensive end. Ball is just that.