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00:00 Lamella ball.
00:02 Wow, what an interesting start to the season.
00:05 I use the word interesting following his fourth quarter
00:08 last night, where he just erupted.
00:10 And to be honest, I thought the whole Dallas game,
00:12 he was actually really good.
00:13 Was it nine or 11 assists at halftime,
00:16 which was, you know, even though his shot wasn't falling
00:18 in the first half, his pick and roll game last night
00:22 against Dallas was just unbelievable in that first half,
00:25 and then finished the game scoring the ball too.
00:26 But let's be honest, before that point chase,
00:30 and maybe before the fourth quarter in Houston,
00:32 you have to say that so far this year,
00:35 it has been a tough ride for Lamella ball.
00:38 I think it's the rare case where you look at the stats
00:40 and I think they're actually better
00:41 than the eye test has been.
00:43 The eye test for Lamella ball has been pretty brutal.
00:46 His turnovers are up, his fouls are up,
00:49 his shooting from deep is off,
00:51 and he just looked a little bit indecisive out there,
00:54 I think.
00:55 And, you know, Lamella ball has,
00:57 we talked about his lack of scoring around the rim,
01:00 his lack of scoring in the mid range.
01:01 He's always been quite reliant on that three point shot,
01:04 and that's always worked for him, right?
01:06 And I think now we're seeing the difficulty
01:08 of when you have a Lamella ball
01:10 who isn't scoring from three at will,
01:14 and how else can you score in the game?
01:16 I think his mid range this year is down to 29%,
01:19 you know, just looking really unsure
01:21 from that mid range area.
01:23 So, look, there has been some green shoots
01:26 with that fourth quarter in Houston,
01:28 with that Dallas game.
01:29 Obviously that Dallas game was at 30 points,
01:31 12 assists, 10 rebounds,
01:33 like what an unbelievable performance.
01:36 But I don't think all this, like Lamella is back.
01:39 Well, let's hope so, right?
01:41 But I don't think we can just disregard
01:43 the first five games where Lamella really struggled.
01:46 And if I'm being honest, Chase, tell me if I'm wrong.
01:49 If Lamella ball just has like average Lamella performances
01:53 in this first five games,
01:54 I think the Hornets are like three and three, four and two,
01:58 but he actively really hurt the team
02:01 just with his inefficiency turnovers
02:03 and fouling in those first few games.
02:05 Do you think that's fair to say?
02:06 - Yeah, man, I definitely don't think you're wrong.
02:09 I don't know if it's necessarily like which games
02:11 that he's gonna be flipping with a good performance
02:13 as an individual, but just like the confidence
02:16 that he would instill in that offense in general
02:18 by being a consistent shooting threat
02:21 and the way that teams are gonna have to defend him
02:23 when he does eventually pick that up,
02:25 obviously is gonna change the outcome of a game
02:27 against a team that's not very good per se,
02:30 like the Nets or the Rockets or the Pistons.
02:32 So any of those three games could have gone the other way
02:35 if Lamella had been building up any sort of a rhythm
02:37 going into it.
02:38 But I mean, up until the fourth quarter of the Dallas game,
02:41 he had not been in rhythm in any way.
02:43 Like just shooting is inefficient across the board.
02:47 There's no area of the floor or shooting range
02:50 from which he's efficient right now.
02:51 There's been nothing positive to glean from that so far.
02:55 I mean, he's impacted the game in a variety of ways.
02:57 Otherwise, his passing is obviously really good.
03:00 I'm pretty sure 9.3 assists is,
03:02 I think it was fourth in the NBA right now,
03:04 is at least top five.
03:06 So that's obviously still being a productive
03:08 or a productive part of his game.
03:10 But apart from that, the defense that we saw
03:13 in the preseason has still been pretty good,
03:15 but you said the fouling has been so high up
03:16 that he fouled out of the game
03:18 that he had a triple-double against Dallas,
03:20 which I feel like it's a very rare thing
03:22 for a player to get a 30-point triple-double
03:25 and still foul out at the end.
03:27 And a lot of it is, I think, just frustration
03:31 and a lack of maybe focus from being 0 for 5,
03:36 0 for 6 from three and a half times
03:38 in the second half of games.
03:40 - Like since his rookie year.
03:41 We were talking in like the second,
03:43 after 10 games rookie year,
03:44 we're like, "Oh, the fouling he'll sort out.
03:46 Like he'll mature, he'll figure out not to get frustrated
03:49 and go pick up silly fouls.
03:50 He'll adapt to NBA defense."
03:53 And it's still a consistent issue.
03:55 And we are now going into whatever year now,
03:58 year four of Lamella Ball,
04:00 and he's still taking himself off the floor at times.
04:04 It's really one of the most frustrating things
04:06 'cause it's completely controllable.
04:08 And by now it should have been corrected.
04:10 And this like, again, just signals a lack of,
04:13 "Why aren't you learning and adapting here, Lamella?"
04:15 Like this is something that you can control and you're not.
04:19 You're not learning from your past mistakes.
04:21 It is a concern.
04:23 - I completely agree.
04:24 I mean, I think he's been good in like in ball screens.
04:27 And you mentioned his pick and roll offense.
04:28 His pick and roll defense, I think,
04:30 has also been pretty good,
04:31 but it's just the committing shooting fouls
04:34 that are completely needless or like reach in fouls
04:36 or just in bad time situations, just committing these.
04:40 And taking, again, like you said,
04:41 taking yourself out of a game.
04:43 Not that it was really in the balance still
04:45 when he fouled out of that Dallas game.
04:46 But I mean, you can't have something like that
04:48 happen frequently.
04:50 - And he has had moments, right?
04:51 You know, he had that obviously game-winning play
04:53 on Tyrese Halliburton.
04:54 That was a great play.
04:55 Don't get me wrong.
04:56 - Absolutely, yes.
04:57 - You know, he won them the game.
04:58 - That was probably his worst defensive game of the season
05:00 to that point too.
05:01 Tyrese Halliburton had 41 points in that game
05:03 leading up to that point.
05:04 - I tweeted earlier in the game that this like,
05:06 he's flushed moments, but it's still not a consistent
05:10 quarter to quarter full game of defense.
05:13 There are moments where he seems really engaged.
05:15 He seems to pick and choose when he does it.
05:17 That moment he chose to do it and he showed he can,
05:19 which makes it even more infuriating
05:21 when at other moments he doesn't.
05:23 But yeah, inconsistent, some progress,
05:29 but still frustrating.
05:30 One last thing just to finish on here before we move on.
05:34 This year, attempts at the rim,
05:36 21% of his shots came at the rim last year.
05:39 That's up to 34% at the start of this year.
05:42 Now, shooting percentages,
05:44 I don't pay too much attention to early in the season,
05:47 but actually like shot diet and play style,
05:49 those stats you can actually put
05:51 a little bit more credit into.
05:52 And that's something I absolutely think with Lamello,
05:54 we've been saying for years that he needs to put
05:56 a greater effort onto driving the ball,
05:59 trying to secure in the paint,
06:01 not relying on that floater.
06:03 And he's been doing that, which is good,
06:04 but it's also just been ugly
06:06 because he's not been finishing.
06:07 And apart from that, I think one game in Detroit
06:10 where he got three throws,
06:11 he struggled to get to the foul line.
06:13 So it's good that he's trying to get to the rim more.
06:17 That's obviously been clear from Steve Clifford,
06:19 but the efficiency is yet to come.
06:22 But like, you've got to try it.
06:23 I'm glad he's experimenting.
06:24 I've seen some different finishes.
06:26 I'm hoping that's a short-term loss for a long-term game.