INDEPENDENCE, Ohio \u2014 Cavs guard Lonzo Ball arrives at his new practice facility, and he starts to look like a person. He walks, He talks, He rocks a pair of Supreme Ducati sweatpants.<\/p>\n
Not pictured: Ball\u2019s contract details or basketball reference tables. <\/p>\n
The NBA offseason turns too many basketball fans (present company included) into cold, data-driven analysts. When the Cavs traded for Ball <\/a>10 days ago, they acquired a $10 million \u201casset\u201d that tallies 11.4 career points per game and shoots 36.2% from 3-point range. And they incurred risk<\/a> by replacing Ty Jerome with a player who plays just 35.9 games per season on average (47.8 if you don\u2019t include Ball\u2019s two full seasons missed). If Ball can\u2019t stay healthy, then …<\/p>\n Are we still talking hoops? <\/p>\n Between math, finance and logic puzzles, all is fair in trade analysis. But basketball is still defined as much by humanity as it is data. Sharing, alchemy and sacrifice drive winning, too. And in these regards, I can promise you:<\/p>\n Cleveland will love Lonzo Ball. <\/p>\n The reasons start with unselfishness, around which Ball orients his game. Cleaningtheglass.com has a stat called \u201cassist to usage ratio,\u201d and I know. I lamented statistics earlier. We\u2019ll make this quick. <\/p>\n In layman\u2019s terms, this is an anti-ball hog metric. Essentially, how often does a player generate assists compared to how often he has the ball? <\/p>\n Ball has ranked in the 90th percentile of assist to usage ratio during three of his six healthy NBA seasons, which is particularly notable given his basketball background. <\/p>\n Remember, Ball played high school hoops at deep-three-chucking hectic-pace-forcing Chino Hills High School under his father, LaVar. Hornets guard LaMelo Ball, Lonzo\u2019s younger brother who learned under the same tutelage, was one of three NBA players to attempt 21 field goals per game last season. Meanwhile, in an era defined by youth basketball \u201cshowcases\u201d (a flashier word for tournaments), individualized training and ball-dominant guards, Lonzo is the child star who doesn\u2019t play like one. <\/p>\n Despite arriving at UCLA as the nation\u2019s top point guard (with one-and-done NBA dreams), Ball attempted fewer than 10 shots per game in college. Since being drafted second overall by the Lakers in 2017, he averages just 10.6. And he owns the second-lowest usage rate \u2014 percentage of a team\u2019s possessions that ends with a player\u2019s shot attempt, free-throw attempt or turnover\u2014 of any NBA guard drafted third overall or higher since 2000. <\/p>\n Sound like a fun teammate? Just ask new Cavs forward Larry Nance Jr., who played 42 games alongside Ball in Los Angeles. <\/p>\n \u201cZo is so exciting,\u201d Nance Jr. said Tuesday. \u201cThe game of basketball is a better place with Zo playing, and I mean that. I truly do. He plays the game as pure as pure, gets. (He) gets off the ball and shares it and just wants to make you better, you better, you better (and) you better. Doesn\u2019t just want to, does.<\/p>\n \u201cI think he\u2019s incredible, really. I\u2019m excited to play with him again, and I\u2019m just looking forward to him making my job a lot easier.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Don\u2019t diminish Nance\u2019s optimism. We all know Ball\u2019s unselfishness \u2014 and his elite defense, and his improved 3-point stroke \u2014 comes with a caveat. No use in rehashing our risk assessment now that he\u2019s here. <\/p>\n In fact, try re-framing: What if Ball\u2019s injury history makes his first Cavs season more enjoyable? <\/p>\n Stick with me. Ball has missed 258 of a possible 328 games over his past four seasons due mostly to a nagging left knee injury that required three surgeries, including one that doctors called a \u201cHail Mary\u201d<\/a> to save Ball\u2019s career (Ball\u2019s knee held up OK last year, but a nagging injury limited him to 35 games). Red flags? Sure, to the icy analyst in all of us. <\/p>\n But feel your heart pump. Check your human spirit. Find the promise in Ball\u2019s suffering. <\/p>\n Remember how fun it was to watch Cleveland revive Jerome\u2019s career last year? Ball could provide a sequel this season, complete with a wider pendulum swing. <\/p>\n From future franchise point guard to forgotten player to potential playoff contributor, the Cavs are counting on Ball\u2019s comeback next season. Eight years into his career, Ball has never logged a playoff minute. He\u2019s watched one first-round exit (2022 Bulls) from the injury report. That\u2019s it. <\/p>\n How cruel. One of basketball\u2019s purest win-first, stat-pad-later players has never tasted the success he deserves. But how cool would it be for Ball to earn it playing for his favorite team?<\/p>\n Call it a technicality, but Ball counted himself a \u201cLeBron (James) Fan\u201d this week despite growing up in Lakers Country. When the 2016 Cavs broke Cleveland\u2019s drought, Ball celebrated, too. <\/p>\n Fun coincidence or divine timing? Depends on who (or when) you ask. Too often this time of year, NBA heads swap their souls for shooting charts. But I wonder if Ball\u2019s playstyle, parlayed with his painful journey, can reorder our logic puzzles so that two things can be true. <\/p>\n The Cavs\u2019 newest asset can\u2019t stay healthy. And you can\u2019t help but root for the guy. <\/p>\n \u201cI always loved the game,\u201d Ball said this week. \u201cI never took it for granted. The love for the game never left. It was just more so, like, not knowing the unknown. I\u2019ve been playing basketball my whole life, so for that to get taken away, and (for me to) not really know what I wanted to do with myself, it\u2019s kind of hard to get through.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I feel like I came out a better person for it, and I\u2019m excited just to be able to play today.\u201d <\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDEPENDENCE, Ohio \u2014 Cavs guard Lonzo Ball arrives at his new practice facility, and he starts to look…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3772],"tags":[26794,7,306,305,193,3846,6,3731],"class_list":{"0":"post-160469","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-cavaliers","8":"tag-_1236419","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-cavaliers","11":"tag-cleveland","12":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","13":"tag-clevelandcavaliers","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-rocket-mortgage-fieldhouse"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114828375782649124","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}