Ball Hype

Lonzo Ball may turn out to be better than I believe he will be in the NBA.

In the summer league, he had one very good game which I did not see, one very bad game which I did see, and one game where he showed some passing skills which were admirable.

The Lakers played eight games in the summer league and won the championship last night.

Of those eight games, Ball did not play in two of them because of injuries.  In a third he sat out a good deal of the second half with the same injury that kept him out of the finals.  The Lakers went 3-2 in the games he played in.

BEFORE the championship game last night--in which he did not play--the league voted him summer league MVP.

Come on.

The guy did not play in the championship game which the Lakers won.  They won another 1 1/2 games without him. They lost two games with him.

How do you name a player MVP when he does not have an impact on over 25% of the short season?

It's hype. The father has a big mouth.  A lot of people went to the games because of the hype surrounding Lonzo Ball.  Maybe 15 years ago I went to a summer league game in Boston. It was held in a local gym.  It was fun to watch, but maybe there were 500 people in attendance.  Daddy Ball and NBA's marketing changed that this summer. So the kid is a draw.

 But when you don't play in the championship game or in over 33 % of the games your team won, and your season opener was a Johnny on the spot latrine stinker...how do you win league MVP?

As I wrote in the beginning, there were some clips from his very good game which were impressive and they made me think that my overall assessment of the player could be wrong. And in another game, I saw some passing that was extra special.  It is possible that he may be somewhere nearly as good as the experts think he will be. I am still not convinced, but maybe.

However, the decision to make him league MVP reflects the hype.  You can't give the MVP to someone who does not play, unless you yourself have consumed the Dad's batch of Kool-Aid.