Media Day 2017

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BTS Media Day: Josh Hart

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2017 Media Day: Magic Johnson

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2017 Media Day: Brandon Ingram

Joey Ramirez

Lonzo Ball grew up with his father showing him tapes of Magic Johnson’s old games.

Now, the five-time champion and leader of the Showtime Lakers is offering himself as Ball’s personal mentor.

In fact, Johnson, the Lakers’ President of Basketball Operations, sees Ball as family.

“When he comes up in my office, I don’t want to be his boss,” Johnson said at Media Day on Monday. “I just want to be his big brother and give him either a pat on the back or some information to help him.”

The 19-year-old Ball has already grown close with the 58-year-old Hall of Famer. There’s just one area where he disagrees.

“He’s like an uncle,” Ball laughed. “More of an uncle. He’s a little too old to be my brother. I appreciate him.”

Regardless of age, the Lakers’ point guards of past and present have formed a connection heading into Ball’s first training camp.

Lonzo said the two were immediately able to relate given how Magic found himself in a similar situation as a rookie in 1979.

Now all Ball has to do is climb the set of stairs to Johnson’s office whenever he needs some advice.

“He’s the best point guard to ever play in my opinion,” Ball said. “He’s right up there. I can go see him whenever I want. He’s always willing to talk to me.”

Johnson wants to provide Ball the kind of guidance that Jerry West, Bill Sharman and Chick Hearn gave him back in the day.

But the 12-time All-Star also sees natural confidence in Ball, whom he says is ready to take on a Western Conference loaded with talent at his position.

“Every night he’s going to go against a great, great, Hall of Fame type point guard,” Johnson said. “But this is why we lace them up. This is why he wanted to get drafted to the Lakers. This is why we picked him — so we can put him in those types of games and situations.”

But Ball isn’t the only young Laker with tall expectations.

While Magic sees a lot of himself in Lonzo, he likens Brandon Ingram to Showtime teammate and fellow Hall of Famer James Worthy.

“I think this is going to be a breakout season for B.I.,” Johnson said. “We need him to step up and be the leading scorer on this team, and really just be aggressive on the offensive end.”

Ingram spent the offseason reworking his jump shot and adding some muscle to his build. He also focused on becoming more explosive and vocal on the floor.

There was hardly a day when Ingram wasn’t working at the UCLA Health Training Center. In fact, the 20-year-old was in so often that coaches and trainers had to tell him to take days off for recovery.

But Ingram confessed that there were times where he’d come in anyway.

“Sometimes I snuck in,” Ingram laughed. “But sometimes I had to listen to my body.”

Johnson is convinced that this work ethic will lead to a huge leap for the sophomore.

Ingram averaged 9.4 points as a rookie but scored 26 in his only Summer League game. He believes that he can meet Magic’s goal of being the Lakers’ leading scorer — with some help from Lonzo, of course.

“That’s something I expect out of myself along with being a leader on the defensive end,” Ingram said. “I know our point guard is going to help us score a lot of easy baskets this year.”

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Ball, Ingram Accept Challenges Heading Into Camp

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2017 Media Day: Lonzo Ball

Mike Trudell

The 2017 Media Day at the glistening UCLA Health Training Center was my 10th covering the Lakers … which means Lonzo Ball was nine years old back when I was following Kobe, Pau and Phil Jackson around the Toyota Sports Center.

Below is a summary of what you need to know as the players went from interview, to photo shoot, to Spectrum TV or ESPN radio promo and more on Monday afternoon:

PELINKA STARTS WITH … A STORY, NATURALLY

As we've learned rather quickly, Lakers GM Rob Pelinka likes to tell stories. So it was no surprise that, when he kicked off Media Day with a noon press conference, he opened in kind.

The essence of it: legendary coach and scout and current Lakers consultant, 90-years-young Bill Bertka, told Pelinka he'd never seen a group of young players that are so competitive and eager to improve in all his years of watching hoops.

Pelinka added that he's excited about how many players have worked this summer to get into "world class shape," and that the Lakers could be described like a line he heard in the hit show "Hamilton," paraphrased such: "We're young, we're scrappy and we're hungry."

He did offer a guarantee, not about how many games the Lakers will win, but that fans are going to "love watching this team," because "every night you're going to see the competition level is going to be a 10 out of 10." Of course, it's very difficult to compete as hard or harder than another NBA team for 82 nights, but Pelinka wants that to be the standard.

If you ask Magic Johnson, acquired-by-trade Brook Lopez is more important to the Lakers than some may think.

"People don't realize that the key to this team is really Lopez," Johnson said. "He's going to draw that center out, so Julius (Randle) will have more room to operate now once he attacks his man. When they run the pick-and-roll with Brook and Lonzo, that big man's got to make a decision."

As such, reports that Lopez has been limited of late due to a back issue needed to be addressed, even though Lopez did not appear to be too worried about it.

"Just some back spasms," he said. "Nothing serious at all. I'll be participating through training camp, doing a lot of the activities. It's, again, nothing serious. Just something we want to continue to monitor so it doesn't become serious."

Lopez went on to explain that nothing happened to cause the spasms that he knows of. There was no point of injury. The back just flared up on him.

Luke Walton took a question about the health of Lopez and the rest of the team.

"Brook will be limited," Walton said. "(Andrew) Bogut has some Visa thing going on, he won't be able to be out there. Josh Hart has a little bit of a hamstring thing, so he'll probably be limited at least for Day 1."

Stay tuned for updates on all three throughout the week.

Since my first Media Day, Kobe Bryant was the guy that attracted the largest number of cameras and voice recorders, naturally. Today, perhaps obviously, that recognition went to Lonzo Ball.

When asked what he wants to focus the most upon in terms of improving, Ball mentioned his body. Simply getting stronger and developing in that way is going to help, given the fact that the 19-year-old is going against "grown men" on a daily basis.

I spent some time asking Ball's teammates and coaches about him, and was met with showers of praise. The players love both his game and his personality, which features a rare combination of confidence and humbleness, something that's already endeared him within the locker room. The coaches love his infectious style of play, the fact that he makes teammates better just be being next to them on the floor, and the basketball IQ that makes him quickly receptive to instruction.

"The way he plays, the unselfish brand is how we want to do it," said Walton. "We're changing up the style a little bit because we have a point guard that likes pushing the ball up the floor. We're going to tweak some of the offensive stuff we do around the fact that he plays the way he does, and hopefully (that) becomes contagious."

I'll refer you to this piece we did last week with Ingram for a closer look at everything he did in the offseason.

That noted, the thing that stood out about Ingram on Media Day was how everybody else talked about him. Sometimes responding to questions and sometimes just volunteering the info, several players noted Ingram's constant presence at the Lakers facility.

"When you see other people working hard, if you don't, you stick out," said Walton. "Ingram really set the tone last year with the way he did his training, his player development, meeting (assistant coach) Brian Keefe every single morning at 9 a.m. no matter what was going on with the schedule. He helped set that tone, and now with these other young players coming in seeing him do it, are doing it, and before you know it everyone behaves like that."

Ball said Ingram has really stepped up his leadership in the offseason, the guy everybody assumed was quiet turning out to be one of the more vocal leaders on the court, and backing it up with a really aggressive mentality.

Magic said the Lakers almost had to throw Ingram out of the gym.

"If we don't stop him from coming, he'll be here all day and night," he offered."

Johnson also suggested he thinks Ingram can lead the team in scoring and sees him as a clear breakout candidate.

RANDLE, NANCE, JR. AMONG THOSE IN RIDICULOUS SHAPE

To see how Julius Randle has developed his body over the season isn't hard. Just check out his Instagram page for that.

Nance, Jr., also looks like he could do an Olympic decathlon tomorrow. He told me he went from 10 percent body fat after the season to just five percent today. Now, being at four percent or below is such little fat that it's barely even healthy, so five percent is about as good of shape as one can be in.

As such a big leaper, a benefit to being a bit leaner with muscle for Nance, Jr. is less weight to upon landing and a more sinewy, stronger base in his legs to cushion his movement.

Johnson has a specific goal for Jordan Clarkson this season.

"I told (Clarkson) he should be a Sixth Man of the Year candidate," Johnson said. "All summer I've been stressing to him: 'Sixth Man of the Year. Sixth Man of the Year. Sixth Man of the Year.' I said, 'You have the skill, the talent and the ability to be in that situation. Now it's up to you. You've got to improve.'"

Clarkson has embraced that, and drew praise for spending increased time at the facility this offseason honing his craft, with a particular focus on his jumper. Clarkson shot 32.9 percent from 3 last year, a number he and the Lakers certainly expect to rise.

NEWLY-MOTIVATED ZUBAC EAGER TO PROVE VEGAS A FLUKE

If you watched Ivica Zubac play at the Las Vegas Summer League, you were likely surprised to see him struggle to do what he'd done so well during his rookie year. He looked a step slow all over the court, and just generally struggled even as he got better from game to game. Nobody was more frustrated than Zubac.

"I was happy we won the title but mad about my (individual) performance," he told me. "I felt slow. But I've been working like crazy since then. I feel quicker and more explosive."

Zubac canceled some trips he had planned so that he could stay in Los Angeles and come to the facility every day to work on his body and his game. He says he trimmed six percent off his body fat percentage, and initially lost some weight before building back some muscle to replace the fat.

Zu acknowledge that he was "too relaxed" in Vegas, thinking he'd score 20 points however he wanted.

"But I wasn't ready," he said. "Now I am. I've been playing really good in pickup games and I'm ready for the season."

Ingram told me last week that Zubac has indeed looked really good in the pick-up games they've been playing, and expects the 7-foot Croatian to return to form once the games that count start.

Luke Walton has come out of the gate preaching defense to start the 2017-18 campaign.

"Our emphasis is going to be defense, defense, defense, and guys that are committed to playing defense are going to have a better shot than guys who aren't giving the same effort on defense," he said. "We're going to try different line ups, different groups together, but they've been in here working so hard all summer, they're just excited that it's here finally. They get to do it for real now."

He'll get his chance to start enforcing that message in the first of two practices tomorrow morning.

2017-media-day-round-up

2017 Media Day Round Up

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EL SEGUNDO – Como no podía ser de otra manera, Rob Pelinka le dio el puntapié inicial al Día de Medios con una rica mezcla de metáforas, analogías y anécdotas.

El carismático gerente general de los Lakers contó su experiencia tras presenciar el reconocido musical ‘Hamilton’ recientemente, y coincidió en uno de los principales mensajes que el boricua Lin-Manuel Miranda utilizó para describir a uno de los Padres Fundadores de los Estados Unidos.

“Jóvenes, aguerridos y hambrientos”, dijo. “Esa es la identidad de nuestros Lakers llegando a la temporada. Cuando los equipos nos enfrenten, ellos verán un nuevo nivel de competición, y un nuevo nivel de dedicación cada noche”.

Sin que le temblara el pulso, Pelinka se alejó de promesas numéricas y decidió enfocarse en una de las grandes falencias de los laguneros en los últimos años.

“La garantía que daré es que los aficionados amarán ver jugar a este equipo”, disparó. “En términos de lograr esa marca cada noche, van a ver que el nivel de competencia será de 10 sobre 10. Somos jóvenes, y nos estamos desarrollando, y será un (proceso continuo) en cuanto a como eso se desarrollará, pero habrá grandes puntos de enfoque para ver cómo se da ese proceso”.

Pelinka también compartió lo que le dijo el legendario Bill Bertka, quien lleva más de 50 años en la NBA y junto a los Lakers. El veterano quedó sorprendido por el compromiso y la unidad de este joven plantel.

“Cuando veas a nuestros jugadores, ese es el sentimiento que tendrás: ‘Wow, esto es algo diferente’”, señaló. “Esta es una nueva mentalidad de los Lakers. Y vas a querer ver como se da ese proceso”.

El ejecutivo reconoció que la piedra angular del proyecto es Lonzo Ball, y no solo por su visión de juego con el balón en las manos.

“Lonzo tiene un estilo de liderazgo único”, avisó. “Es un estilo contagioso de liderazgo. No es demasiado vocal, o con una gran personalidad, pero de la manera que se maneja, es una confianza tranquila, una humildad que atrae a los demás muchachos. Es un estilo de liderazgo quizás distinto al de otros en la NBA, pero es muy efectivo”.

Pelinka, al igual que Luke Walton, también dejó entrever que el libreto ofensivo no será tan complejo como en años anteriores. Los Lakers volverán a las fuentes, con dos prioridades marcadas y simbióticas.

“Magic dejó en claro que hay dos cosas de las que dependeremos: una es la defensa”, enumeró. “Traer a jugadores como Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Andrew Bogut, que tienen esa mentalidad defensiva, que son jugadores que tienen una mentalidad que se puede filtrar hacia todo el equipo. La defensa es lo primero, y lo segundo es subir el ritmo. Vamos a jugar rápido, y la bola vendrá hacia ti. Si no estás mirando sobre tu hombro, la bola te golpeará (en los números de la espalda). Lo vimos en Las Vegas…y Lonzo es claramente el líder de ese estilo. A nuestros otros guardias, Tyler Ennis, Jordan Clarkson, Briante Weber, les hemos dicho que cuando entren al juego tiene que seguir subiendo el ritmo y jugar de esa forma”.

Por último, y siempre con un ojo en el futuro, Pelinka pintó un panorama alentador de cara a la próxima etapa del actual proyecto.

“Estamos en esta increíble posición, que es muy rara en la NBA, en la que tenemos un núcleo joven muy, muy bueno, y una situación de espacio salarial extremadamente saludable”, reconoció. “Lograr esas dos cosas al mismo tiempo es bastante difícil, pero esa fue la visión de Magic…y ahora tenemos la oportunidad de llegar al 1 de julio de 2018, ver quién está en el mercado, y luego construir nuestro equipo con esos dos espacios máximos que tenemos, que podrían ser para dos jugadores, para múltiples jugadores, o que podrían ser usados para renovar a algunos de nuestros propios jugadores. Tenemos la flexibilidad de mantener el núcleo joven intacto, y de construir con la flexibilidad salarial”.

A lo largo de 24 minutos de conferencia de prensa, Pelinka también halagó el trabajo este verano de Kyle Kuzma, Julius Randle, y Jordan Clarkson entre otros. Además, Brandon Ingram fue reconocido por su presencia constante en el gimnasio, y por buscar activamente un rol de liderato.

“Con Brandon Ingram, la palabra que se me viene a la mente es ‘liderazgo’”, confesó el ex representante de Kobe Bryant. “Él es uno de los otros líderes. Él es fuertemente competitivo, y en los juegos en las prácticas, él es el tipo que te enfrenta, tratando de superarte. Él se comprometió a venir aquí y trabajar todo el verano. Brandon es un tipo callado. Tenemos varios tipos que lideran con el ejemplo, y me parece una forma poderosa de liderar, pero creo que la mejora que hemos visto en sus habilidades, su fortaleza, y en su nivel de confianza, son increíbles”.