LeBron James and Lonzo Ball were written off as incompatible from the moment they became Los Angeles Lakers teammates this summer.
The downsides are obvious. LeBron makes life difficult for his point guards by dominating the ball, and Lonzo looks like he's lifting a couch when he loads up to shoot. Plus, between LeBron's subtweets and LaVar's vanity, it's easy to see how things could go south this season.
But LeBron must have seen potential in the unorthodox point guard, or he wouldn't have chosen to team up. Indeed, two of the sharpest minds in the game will find a way to make it work, and their skill sets should complement each other better than expected, putting James and Ball in prime position to lead the Lakers to a deep playoff run. Here's why:
How LeBron helps Lonzo
Surrendering touches to LeBron won't undermine Lonzo's effectiveness; unlike other modern point guards, the sophomore is truly a pass-first player.
Ball doesn't need to hold the rock to accumulate assists like Russell Westbrook and John Wall. He makes quick and unselfish decisions in the mold of Jason Kidd, with a focus on making the right play instead of hunting for stats. In fact, according to the NBA's tracking data, Lonzo tallied 1.38 assists for every minute he possessed the ball last season - a rate that led all point guards.
The sequence below might look like an ordinary pass, but it highlights the subtlety of Ball's incredible court vision:
On the play, Lonzo catches the ball as the trailer on the fast break. Instead of driving the lane and trying his luck with a contested layup against Jae Crowder, he immediately spots a two-on-one opportunity on the opposite wing. And rather than forcing a risky cross-court pass to Josh Hart, he smartly reverses the ball to Brandon Ingram at the elbow. That coaxes defender J.R. Smith to leave Hart wide open for three.
Ball doesn't get credit for an assist on the play, but he's the one who makes the incisive read to split the defense. He'll have plenty of opportunities to move the ball like this even with LeBron taking over the offense.
As a team, coach Luke Walton insists on being aggressive in transition - the Lakers led the league in that category last season - and Lonzo will be pivotal when it comes to quarterbacking and initiating fast breaks. He has a gift for throwing hit-ahead passes - a particularly useful skill when paired with his strong defensive-rebounding instincts. This season, playing with a finisher like LeBron should only accentuate Ball's playmaking abilities. Check out this rebound and full-court feed:
But while Lonzo excels in transition, he struggles as the primary creator. He was force-fed a heavy diet of pick-and-roll possessions last season, but he was never comfortable because he couldn't score. More specifically, Ball isn't an effective pull-up shooter (made 29 percent from deep in 2017-18) and can't drive and finish at the basket (35.5 percent), which translated to abysmal pick-and-roll numbers in which he scored just 0.63 points per possession (17th percentile).
That deficiency will go away when LeBron takes over as the first option. Lonzo's initial priority will be to push the pace and find easy offense. If those opportunities aren't there, he'll slow the tempo and feed LeBron in the post before trying to make plays away from the ball.
One specific skill that Lonzo will need to hone off the ball is his cutting ability. With few playmakers on the Lakers' roster in 2017-18, those opportunities were rare, as Ball shot only 27 times off cuts all season, according to NBA Stats.
However, cutting won't be an entirely foreign experience for him, as the Lakers will continue to play out of the post - only with LeBron in place of Julius Randle and Brook Lopez. Walton loves to run HORNS with two bigs at the elbow and two wings waiting in the corner, and Lonzo showed a strong understanding of how he could get his offense from those sets.
In the example below, Lonzo dumps the ball down to Randle before setting a back pick on the baseline. The defense doesn't communicate and both players go after Kyle Kuzma, so Ball smartly makes them pay by curling around a down screen from Lopez to sink a wide-open triple. Defenders will only be more distracted when it's LeBron instead of Randle in this action.
Lonzo should also study tape on how Dwyane Wade found his offense while the defense focused on LeBron in the post. More often than not, Lonzo's man will be asked to help out on LeBron, and that should leave Ball with plenty of chances to cut backdoor. The defense gave the same treatment to Wade last season in Cleveland, and the wily veteran capitalized:
How Lonzo helps LeBron
There shouldn't be any concerns with regards to LeBron's individual production. He could suit up with four G Leaguers and still get his 28-8-8.
The challenge will be fielding the right supporting players to make life easy, and that's where playing with Lonzo presents a unique challenge. Ball's not like LeBron's previous sidekicks - scorers who can carry the offense when needed like Wade and Kyrie Irving. Ingram and Kuzma are better suited for that role in L.A., so Lonzo will need to invent his own way of coexisting.
As touched on in the previous section, a key way Lonzo can help is by pushing the pace. Despite LeBron being the most devastating transition threat of all time, his teams have never finished higher than 12th in pace. Asking a 33-year-old to speed up won't be an easy sell, but playing faster and getting quick baskets is better for the body than meticulously grinding out possessions. This season, LeBron can devastate teams as the trailer on a secondary fast break in his new role as a small-ball center, especially with an elite passer like Lonzo feeding him the ball.
It also helps that Lonzo is a low-maintenance teammate (LaVar's the troublemaker) who won't compete with LeBron for touches. Lonzo's happy to set up his teammates, hunt for opportunities off the ball, and focus on being a disruptive defender. He won't frustrate LeBron by overstepping his role and stopping the ball like Isaiah Thomas did last season.
But all of that will come secondary to Lonzo's ability to spread the floor. LeBron's at his best when surrounded by shooters, and for all of his gifts, Lonzo is not that. But there is promise on that front, as Lonzo overcame a miserable start last season to make 37 percent of his catch-and-shoot threes on four attempts per game from December onward.
Ball struggles to shoot off the dribble because there are too many moving parts in his release to get enough separation, but his ugly form produced pretty results when he could actually set his feet before releasing a shot.
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