Who is Lonzo Ball?

[msusousaphone]

I'm not even sure what this means.

What's a ''rhythm watcher''? Is that just supposed to be a new term for the ol' fashioned ''eye test'' guys?

The flow of the game. Rhythm. Tempo. Feel. The psychology of the game. Something the analytics miss. But very real. Soccer gives the best example, IMO, with Germany and Brazil. Germany's system is very much like analytics. It's a consistent machine. Hard to break. Pretty much the same from kickoff to the final whistle but teams start to get mowed down in the end. Brazil is like music. Their tempo and pace swell during the game like a great dance. They will go for long periods of time slowing the pace down and it's infectious. The other team usually slows down to that pace....then wham....they suddenly quicken the tempo and the other team looks like their in a trance.

In basketball, you can see it by who is dictating the game. When a team is flowing, that's the feel. The rhythm. I noticed in your pregame writeup a few games back you mentioned something like it wasn't that the Pels D was vastly improved, it was that the opponents were shooting below percentage. They were shooting below percentage because we disrupted their rhythm. Players and coaches constantly reference this.

Rondo is amazing at this. Curry is a master of it on the level...casual dribble up court then a sudden quick hitch for a surprise shot. You'll notice he also dictates the tempo of the entire game. Ball has the best sense of this with Ingram showing he is second. There have been multiple games that the opposing teams were dictating the play and disrupting our rhythm. Ball entered in and it solidified. This is what Jrue lacks. It's why he is such a great player but just diminishes when controlling the offense. It also explains why he ends quarters so awkwardly. Maybe Zion will have it. I didn't watch him much in college. I don't know. But Ball is currently the lone man on the team that excels in it.

[Snarly]

I’m going to continue to be a non believer until he shows that he can develop a reliable go to move that doesn’t involve a shot behind th arc.

[Pelicanidae]

What I'm getting from this "rhythm watcher" perspective is that essentially you're saying that Lonzo doesn't do anything that actually shows up by any quantifiable metric but somehow just Possesses a Quality That Makes Us Win, which is a very odd quality to ascribe to a career loser.

It also has a very unpleasant undertone of "we Game Watchers truly understand what you Analytics Nerds don't", which is funny considering analytics nerds watch more basketball than "eye test" and "game watchers" do. By a wide margin.

Edit: I'll also note that the concept of ''feel'' isn't something that's somehow barred from people who care about analytics. The largest single group of analytic people that I can think of is draft analysts, and they're constantly talking about feel and being ignored by people who champion the eye test. Possibly the biggest example of this from last year was Rui Hachimura, who was paraded around as the next Giannis by eye-test people, but simultaneously lambasted as having atrocious defensive feel, with no ability to anticipate the game or make reads or react proactively to new situations.

To put the concept of ''feel'' into a little box and then gift it to the eye test people, as though anyone who cares about analytics must be incapable of recognising it, is pretty ridiculous to be honest.

[msusousaphone]

I can't tell if you're grossly misinterpreting what I said as a joke (on purpose) or if the concept really is that foreign to you. Not meaning that with ill intent, genuinely not sure where to go.

[Pelicanidae]

I can't tell if you're grossly misinterpreting what I said as a joke (on purpose) or if the concept really is that foreign to you. Not meaning that with ill intent, genuinely not sure where to go.

I honestly think I must be just totally not getting your point, and as a result we're talking past each other. No big deal, really.

[msusousaphone]

*cuts to cheesey montage video of us learning flamenco and samba dances together

Lol

I get that. You have a very engineer brain, eh? I'm definitely on the opposite end.

[Pelicanidae]

*cuts to cheesey montage video of us learning flamenco and samba dances together

Lol

I get that. You have a very engineer brain, eh? I'm definitely on the opposite end.

I don't know if I'd say that (my degree is in literature and philosophy so I'm a little more artsy than you might think ), but I feel like when it comes to basketball (a game which is, at the end of the day, a contest to see who can make their number bigger than the other team's number) there's a hugely important quantifiable element that a lot of eye-test types completely dismiss in favour of their specific aesthetic preference.

Which is fine, obviously basketball is a game that you watch for fun so there should be some kind of balance between the quantifiable (Because winning is fun and losing generally isn't) and the aesthetic. It's possible to go too far in terms of viewing analytics as an end in themselves rather than a means to an end. I definitely concede that. Houston, for example, are the most 'optimised' team in the NBA and they're also excruciatingly boring to watch.

But it's also possible to go too far the other direction, which is where you end up with people essentially just arguing for strategies that are incredibly easily shown to be bad in terms of winning, and these are usually just people arguing in favour of whatever strategy they grew up watching and are therefore sort-of ''indoctrinated'' into preferring. This is the Cult of the Infinite Post-Up, or the people who still swear up and down that midrange shots are better than threes.

If you take someone like Lonzo, it's easy to say that you enjoy watching him play and that the way he integrates into the team is a way you like, but at the same time we do want to win some basketball games, and if his feel and his rhythm doesn't actually result in efficient scoring or consistent defense, then what good is it?

Maybe you completely agree with all of this and I'm just babbling for no reason, I don't even know anymore

[msusousaphone]

I agree with pretty much all of that except for the.Lonzo stuff. The modern NBA is so analytical that it really is the dominant force.

What I mean with Ball though is that when he isn't playing, other teams tend to dictate the game. Their play. Their rhythm. Their shots are getting off in rhythm. They even start making lucky shots or shooting above their percentage. Their D sets up the way they want. When watching Lonzo, we tend to be the ones dictating our presence. Our shots (maybe not necessarily his but the team's as a whole) are falling. Our D is getting set up. Even when the other team gets open, they miss more shots than usual.

So it DOES impact the game. It does lead to wins.

It's essentially like the presence of a good leader with an army. His presence brings an quitative and not quantitative value to the troops. They perform better. Lonzo has that presence. It's inconsistent. But it is getting more consistent.

[JJackisangry]

Definitely showing something as of late. If he can consistently be an inside out scorer and learn to lead an offense consistently, he becomes either a big piece for us or a big piece we can use later in a trade. As others have said, it’s all mental with him. Daddy issues and all that

[HartOfaPelican]

Definitely showing something as of late. If he can consistently be an inside out scorer and learn to lead an offense consistently, he becomes either a big piece for us or a big piece we can use later in a trade. As others have said, it’s all mental with him. Daddy issues and all that

Whats going to be really curios is to see what he can do with Zion in the lineup.

If Zo can continue this trend, Zion will only help Zo take it to the next level. With Zion, Zo, and Ingram going forward.... this team can be a contender in a few years.

[Wecandothis]

Lonzo's last three games 24.6 ppg 6 reb 8.3 Assists 2 steals 39% 3 point. I don't know where this came from but I've never seen him play like this. Is Lonzo finally becoming the player I envisioned when he got drafted #2?

[AusPel]

The GOAT

[donato]

Lonzo's last three games 24.6 ppg 6 reb 8.3 Assists 2 steals 39% 3 point. I don't know where this came from but I've never seen him play like this. Is Lonzo finally becoming the player I envisioned when he got drafted #2?

I hope so! It could just be an aberration/hot streak, but he looks really great out there. Maybe something has clicked. Maybe it's 2 steps forward, 1 step back eventually, but he's going in the right direction. I'm starting to become a believer when just a couple weeks ago I was ready to ship him off.

[Wowowowow]

When you are a young player, there’s a point in your career where you start looking at NBA rosters. You start looking around and you realize...these guys aren’t that good. Came in the league and players you see on tv all the time start looking old or you associate them with being old.

If you listen to every young player when they get experience who has the tools and work ethic, it’s a rendition of that same old story.

[msusousaphone]

It's also learning your teammates.

In previous games Ball would have some jaw dropping passes that caught teammate unawares and they ended up as turnovers. I haven't seen those the past few weeks. Either he is learning their limits or they are learning what to expect from him. Zion coming in will open some of that up, too.

Elfrid Payton really did spoil us. Being the "assist guy" is hard. You have to learn each player, their tendency to move off the ball, where they like the pass placement, etc. It should have taken Elfrid months to gel with his teammates and learn their game but he had it from day one.

[luckyman]

He's said multiple times that his ankle injury is better. He does seem to have more bounce. Beats everyone down the court. He's starting to realize he is 6'6", which would be better used to his advantage with better coaching.

He's still only 22. Anthony Davis was still a slightly larger string bean at 22.

[Pelicanidae]

He's said multiple times that his ankle injury is better. He does seem to have more bounce. Beats everyone down the court. He's starting to realize he is 6'6", which would be better used to his advantage with better coaching.

He's still only 22. Anthony Davis was still a slightly larger string bean at 22.

Anthony Davis was 24/10 coming off an MVP calibre season at 22. Tough to compare that to Lonzo.

[luckyman]

Anthony Davis was 24/10 coming off an MVP calibre season at 22. Tough to compare that to Lonzo.

The year before he was 22, the Pelicans won 45 games to squeak in as an 8th seed, he only played in 68 games, and you say that's "mvp caliber."

And AD was always the featured player as soon as he stepped foot here.

The point is given all that, 22 year old AD is not like the player he is now. He's grown as a player a ton since then and I'm not just talking physically.

[msusousaphone]

True. AD grew so much....especially inbetween 2015-16 and 2016-17. We should get the coach who helped AD grow so much to help our young guys. Who was coaching AD when he was 22?

#HireGentry

[Pelicanidae]

The year before he was 22, the Pelicans won 45 games to squeak in as an 8th seed, he only played in 68 games, and you say that's "mvp caliber."

I say MVP calibre because he literally finished top 5 in MVP voting that year