Los Angeles Lakers: 3 bold predictions for Lonzo Ball’s rookie season

Lonzo Ball leads NBA in assists per game

Speaking of assistance from Ball, he’s already looking like an elite passer. There’s a reason he led all of college basketball in assists per game during his freshman year at UCLA. We might as well predict that he’ll do the same in his first NBA season, considering how well he played during Summer League.

Here’s a taste of what we can expect from Ball in 2017-18:

To have pulled it off a season ago, Ball would have needed to amass more than the 11.2 assists per game that James Harden managed. Seeing as he averaged 9.3 per game in Las Vegas, I could easily see Ball coming out on top this season. You have to consider that Summer League games are shorter, and the rookie was still figuring things out.

While the competition during the regular season will be much greater, Ball is only going to improve as the season goes along. He already improved leaps and bounds between the first Summer League game and the last, and I can assure you it had nothing to do with the shoes.

As the season progresses, he’ll start to learn better and better how to utilize his otherworldly passing skills. He’ll cut down on turnovers, and find more efficient ways to feed his teammates the rock. Especially if Kyle Kuzma works his way into the rotation, I could see the two of them connecting early and often when on the court together.

Ball knows how to take advantage of the talent around him. With the culture of this franchise changing and winning becoming a bigger priority, I’m guessing they’ll improve considerably on their middle-of-the-road offense from a season ago.