New Orleans Pelicans: 3 goals for Lonzo Ball for a successful season

New Orleans Pelicans: Lonzo Ball has to improve his free-throw shooting

Shaquille O’Ball

If I asked you who had a lower career free-throw percentage, Lonzo Ball or Shaquille O’Neal, who would you answer?

You’d probably guess Shaq, right? After all, he was known as one of the worst free-throw shooters of all time, a weakness that was talked about ad nauseum during his career.

But if you guessed Shaq, you’d be wrong. Very wrong actually.

O’Neal’s career free-throw percentage stands at 52.7 and he had seasons as high as 62.2 percent in his career.

Lonzo Ball’s career mark is 48.7 percent and that’s after his “best” season of 56.6 percent actually raised his average!

This is absolutely unacceptable for a point guard who shoots better than 38 percent from 3-point range.

Not only does Lonzo brick them, but he only shoots 1.2 free throws per game, near the bottom of the NBA for starting point guards.

This has to change if Lonzo Ball is ever going to be an All-Star level point guard.

This weakness limits his game, limits the ceiling of the Pelicans’ offense and makes it very difficult to close out games, evidenced by the fact that the Pelicans were the worst clutch time team in the NBA last season.

It’s hard to bench your point guard in a close game, but even harder to watch him brick free throws or take bad mid-range shots because he is afraid to get fouled.

The New Orleans Pelicans will only go as far as Lonzo Ball’s improvement carries them. If he can be a versatile defender who gets to the rim and makes free throws, he will be an All-Star.

If he doesn’t, he might not be a Pelican by midseason.