Lonzo Ball has been great and terrible in 67 NBA minutes. That’s what happens with rookies

Lonzo Ball struggled hard as a 19-year-old playing his first NBA game against an All-First team defender in Patrick Beverley. Then he nearly triple-doubled in his second game against the Phoenix Suns.

Is he a terrible prospect? No. Is he the greatest rookie of all time? Also no.

Because of Lonzo’s celebrity, and obviously his father, everyone’s rushed to make harsh judgements about the Lakers’ new point guard. We haven’t seen enough Lonzo to come close to start making those decisions.

Ball put up 29 points, 11 rebounds and nine assists in a 2-point win over Phoenix. Those are staggering numbers for any player in the league, and had he finished with one more assist, he’d have been the youngest player EVER — edging LeBron James out by three weeks — to triple-double. (He still has 13 more games to get that done.) That’s incredible, even if it took him 27 shots!

But after playing 67 more minutes of professional basketball than you or me, we can officially conclude nothing about how good or bad Lonzo Ball is in the NBA. We only know that he’s really freakin’ fun to watch.

What changed for Ball in his second game?

Not having Patrick Beverley breathing down your neck, poking at the ball on every dribble, and contesting every shot you even think about taking gives everyone in the NBA a better chance at succeeding. Instead, he had Eric Bledsoe and Mike James split time defending him, and a much less cohesive defensive unit backing them up. That let Lonzo be Lonzo.

Just like he did at UCLA, Ball grabbed every defensive board with the energy to send the ball flying up court for a full-court pass. A pass-first point guard, this is a skill that has Lakers fans ready to declare him Rookie of the Year.

With less defensive pressure, Ball was able to penetrate the initial line of defenders and kick out for Brook Lopez three-pointers and Larry Nance elbow jumpers too. Ball is at his best when he’s making others better.

Should we expect similar numbers from Ball all season?

Noooope. Ball is going to have his ups and downs like every rookie does. But it’s also easy to forget that he’s playing in one of the youngest rotations in the league. The Lakers aren’t built for stability. Sometimes they’ll look great, others they’ll look awful. That’s fine for a franchise with eyes towards the future, but won’t make things easy for Ball to look great every night. His numbers should vary somewhere in between what he brought in his first and second games in the league.

Ok, so the world won’t continue to make too big a deal of what Lonzo does, right?

Absolutely wrong, my friend.