The Los Angeles Lakers fell to the Phoenix Suns 122-113 on Friday night and once again, a lot of talk after the game surrounded rookie point guard Lonzo Ball. This time, however, it had nothing to do with his shooting.
Late in the game, an altercation started between Suns guard Tyler Ulis and Lakers guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. As many players ran over to the skirmish, Ball did the opposite, completely walking away from the incident.
Ball explained that he simply didn’t view the altercation as anything serious and didn’t want to pick up a technical foul in a crucial moment. While this hasn’t caused any kind of divide between Ball and his teammates, head coach Luke Walton revealed that a teammate did talk to Lonzo about it via Shahan Ahmed of NBC LA:
Luke Walton said that a player did talk to Lonzo about him walking away from the skirmish, but the coach wouldn’t say who. Said he prefers the players handle that type of stuff and share what they want to publicly.
— Shahan Ahmed (@shahanLA) November 18, 2017
One player who wasn’t bothered was veteran Brook Lopez, and overall Walton downplayed the entire thing via Ahmed:
Brook Lopez said he wasn’t bothered by Lonzo’s reaction, and Luke also downplayed the inaction because of how Lonzo gets along with all of his teammates. All that said, someone talked to Lonzo about how to handle the situation differently next time.
— Shahan Ahmed (@shahanLA) November 18, 2017
Ball had the right idea in that he didn’t want to do anything stupid that could hurt his team. However, it is a thin line as players want to feel like their teammates have their back. Many Lakers fans will remember Nick Young calling out his teammates years ago when he felt no one backed him up during an altercation.
Regardless, this is something that will have no effect on the Lakers moving forward. As long as Lonzo’s teammates are fine with him they will move on and he will have learned a lesson.
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