Los Angeles Lakers: 5 reasons Lonzo Ball was the right pick

1. Return of Showtime

The Los Angeles Lakers, until recently, had been renowned as the free agent destination. Glitz. Glamour. Hollywood. All the perks a player could ask for came as part of being a Laker.

In recent times, however, that has changed.

Players such as Kevin Durant, who previously would have jumped at the chance of arranging a meeting during free agency, simply let it slide. Dwight Howard, who arrived via trade in the summer of 2012, bolted after just one season. Things that previously wouldn’t have been thought to be possible were becoming the norm.

But things are changing.

First, there was the changing of the guard in the front office, with the introduction of Johnson, as well as the team’s new general manager, former player agent Rob Pelinka. But on the court is where it really starts, and Ball clearly has the chance to become a transformational star.

At the introductory press conference, Johnson even brought in comparisons to his Showtime Lakers teams of the ’80s.

"“We want to start building a successful team, and you have to have a great leader, and somebody that can make their teammates better, somebody who has incredible basketball IQ — his IQ is off the charts — and somebody who can get their teammates to follow them and want to get out on that wing like James Worthy and Byron Scott and Michael Cooper used to do back in the day. We feel like we have that person right here in Lonzo Ball.”"

A vision such as this is certainly one of the reasons Lakers’ owner Jeannie Buss brought Johnson aboard in order to lead the Lakers into a new and exciting era.

Next: 2017 NBA Draft grades for all 30 teams

And what better way to kick off this new era of Lakers basketball than letting an electrifying point guard steer the ship?