Getty Lonzo Ball
You’ll hear and see a lot of NBA comps for the Chicago Bulls‘ Lonzo Ball, but here is one with Boston Celtics legend Larry Bird.
NBA insider Chris Palmer was making a point. He wanted to point out just how accurate Ball has been from three-point range. Take a look at this statistical comparison.
Lonzo Ball is shooting 44% from three. Larry Bird shot 42% twice in 13 years. Bird’s other 11 years 31%.
Bird made 649 threes. In 13 years.
Lonzo is at 529 threes. In 4 years.
These are facts.
Ball’s three-point marksmanship has been a big reason for the Bulls’ offensive success. Ball is shooting a blazing 45% from three on just under 7 long-range attempts per game.
The turnaround in effectiveness from long range is impressive. That percentage is a career best for Ball. He’s also averaging career highs in steals (1.9) blocks (0.8) and free-throw shooting (83.3%).
While all of those numbers are important, the shooting is what helps to spread the floor for Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan as well as Nikola Vucevic–once he returns from COVID-19 quarantine. As it is, Ball, DeRozan and Alex Caruso have been arguably the best offseason acquisitions in the NBA this year.
About Portland…
The Bulls are coming to the end of a brutal west coast trip. They take on Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets on Friday night with a chance to head back to the United Center with an 11-5 record and a 3-2 record on the five-game trip.
Quite honestly, the Bulls should be 11-4, but they blew a 20-point lead on Wednesday night in Portland against the Trail Blazers and wound up losing 112-107.
Ball did his best to help the Bulls pull out what wound up being a tough road game. Unfortunately, his 17 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 blocks and 2 steals weren’t enough to push Chicago over the top.
On interesting tidbit from Ball’s stat line is the fact that he didn’t attempt a free throw all night despite taking 13 shots from the field (8 from two-point range) many of which were drives.
This has become commonplace for Ball who hasn’t attempted a free throw since October 30. Ball appeared to be fouled on at least two of his drives, but the officials didn’t whistle the Blazers for any of those calls.
It appears officials aren’t ready to blow the whistle when Ball drives, but that’s something Bulls head coach Billy Donovan might need to bring to their attention.
Rebounding in Denver?
The Bulls will be looking to close out the road trip on a winning note and to ensure they finish the western excursion with an above-500 record. The Nuggets are coming off an embarrassing home loss (103-89) to a depleted Philadelphia 76ers team. The Bulls know a little bit about that as they fell to the 76ers minus Tobias Harris in back-to-back games earlier this month.
It won’t be easy for the Bulls to get the victory considering Jokic brings the element Chicago has struggled most with this season, and that’s a big-bodied center.
We’ll see if Ball has the same shooting eye to help push the Bulls to win.
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