Red Larrivee wrote:drosestruts wrote:Pretty much what Doug said here, I mean the title is "buy low guys with superstar upside" so everyone mentioned here will have some flaw in their game. Lonzo's flaw is shooting, but he's an excellent defender, a great playmaker/passer, has plus size for his position, is athletic, has a good basketball iq. If he could shoot, you'd never have the opportunity to even trade for him.
In College we saw Lonzo shoot:
2P% - 73%
3P% - 41%
FT% - 67%
He's been well under these numbers as a pro, but it's not only part of his game that hasn't translated. He would improve the offensive numbers of everyone else on our team. If we had Lonzo, Carter would probably be a league leader in dunks. Lonzo wants to set up his other teammates to score, it's a rare mindset. It's not just drive and kicks leading to assists, it's patience, quality passing, excellent vision and an unselfish mindset.
But again, why is it going to improve? Considering how awful his mechanics are and how bad his FT% is in the NBA, those percentages could just be a fluke. To me, superstar upside is a concept that least seems believable. If not, a bunch of players have superstar upside based on the slim possibility of improving an obvious flaw.
He probably won't, but to play along I'll list his age, advanced feel for the game, injuries, and situation as reasons to believe that maybe there's more to Lonzo then what we've seen. To break each down:
Lonzo will be 22 next season, still very young and still far from his prime. Plenty of years to continue putting in work and improving
A lot of what Lonzo possesses seem like characteristics that are hard to coach, the sort of thing that you have or you don't. These qualities being his vision, his passing, and his desire to set up others rather then score himself. People get better at shooting, or get stronger, players don't often make big jumps in vision, and understanding spacing and how what you do at what pace will get the defense to react in certain ways. Lonzo has this, he has the unteachable stuff, what's broken can be fixed.
Injuries - it could be Lonzo's fate that he never plays more then 50 games in a season, or these could be to unlucky fluke years that happened right away. But playing with and through injuries is sure to have effected Lonzo's game thus far.
Situation - being a rookie is hard. Playing with LeBron is hard. Lonzo got to experience both these things right off the bat. There's never been much of a rope for Lonzo coming in to LA with his dad. Then you add LeBron and you're expectation jump even higher, with LeBron you should be a competitor. Then you deal with constant rumors of being traded. It's a lot. So maybe a different situation helps. We've seen plenty examples of a change of scenery helping a player out. Lonzo would play with better spacing in Chicago then he currently has in LA.
I mean this is a thread about buy low guys that could be superstars, I feel like the easier answer it to say "nobody" cause honestly, how often does someone struggle then become a super star? It's not often.
But given the criteria, aside from the rumors connecting the Bulls to him. I think one such player could be Lonzo Ball.
). His efficiency is pretty crazy for the high usage and ball hogging role
