New Orleans Pelicans: What Jamal Murray’s Run Says About Lonzo Ball’s Future
By Nick Alvarez
The New Orleans Pelicans need to change Lonzo Ball’s game to win a championship
Watching the 2020 NBA playoffs is a thrilling experience even without the New Orleans Pelicans. After so much time without the game due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s amazing to see such high-intensity basketball on a nightly basis.
The problem is, when I watch these playoffs from the viewpoint of the New Orleans Pelicans, I see just how far their young roster is from being contenders. This something we’ve written about recently too, the Pelicans as constructed are not ready to handle playoff basketball. They simply don’t have the strength or experience for it yet.
After last night, my concerns grew about one specific Pelicans player, Lonzo Ball. After seeing players like James Harden, Kemba Walker, and Jamal Murray light up the playoffs with their scoring, I’m starting to question whether Lonzo Ball is the type of guard that can win in the modern NBA.
It’s, unfortunately, creating a referendum in my head about one of my favorite players on the New Orleans Pelicans roster. I love Lonzo Ball because I appreciate his throwback game, I enjoy seeing him focus on creating plays and not scoring. In the past, I disagreed with the critiques that Ball needed to be more aggressive scoring but now I’m starting to agree with them.
My sudden change heart comes from recognizing that the best guards in the NBA playoffs can make plays just as great as Lonzo can when they have to. They’re better than Lonzo Ball because they can make plays by scoring when they want to as well.
This is where the concern comes into play because I choose to believe in building an NBA champion through the growth of young players instead of trading for superstars. If I want to root for the New Orleans Pelicans in that light then Lonzo Ball plays a major role in the team’s leap to contention.
I thought that Lonzo Ball’s playmaking combined with Brandon Ingram and Zion Williamson’s scoring would be the key to a championship for this team, but that’s wrong. The 2020 NBA Playoffs are proving that if the Pelicans want to win a title with Lonzo Ball, they’ll need him to score more.