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00:00 with Lamella Ball. He has been back now for four games. He went down not long after our last 960.
00:07 He then missed his last game with a right ankle tweak again. In that same game, he was seen to
00:14 play with his wrist, he was grabbing his hamstring and his glute. I'm petrified every time he drives
00:20 into the lane. He just doesn't seem to be built to, you know, every single game he plays, he seems
00:27 to have something. There was a game where he kept falling into cameraman in the sidelines. He does
00:34 play, he's not reckless, but he just has a knack for finding himself in these positions where he
00:40 ends up putting himself in harm's way. But since he's been back, he obviously had those two months
00:44 off. 26 and a half points, five rebounds, six assists, 46% from the field, 36% from three,
00:51 7.8 free throw attempts per game since he's returned. So he's been playing pretty well.
00:57 Since coming back, considering that he's still clearly not at 100%, he came back into a Hornets
01:03 team, which was definitely struggling. But I mean, the key thing that stood out to me really
01:09 is his defense since coming back. I mean, I looked at this, he's actually up at 2.8 deflections per
01:14 game in the NBA, which is 15th in the league. And that's like on a par with guys like Gary Payton,
01:21 who plays for Warriors, Dyson Daniels, who plays for New Orleans. And these are guys who are like
01:26 known to be defensive disruptors. So for him to be on a par with those guys is just super
01:31 impressive. And I've really noticed he's definitely had some better defensive tapes since coming back,
01:36 seemed really engaged. That first game he came back, I mean, maybe it was because he was fresh,
01:40 because he was coming off two months off, but he was looking super active on the defensive end.
01:45 So the offense has been decent, not spectacular, but decent considering. But the defense has
01:50 definitely looked kind of a grade up a little bit from when we saw him in the first part of the
01:54 season. Yeah. And if I remember correctly, like even in that first nine and 60, the general energy
02:01 and effort that he showed on that end was something that we noted like in the past.
02:05 And this goes for a lot of players that are, you know, the offensive engine, the franchise cornerstone
02:10 number one option on their team being like some, you know, hard nose, like slap the floor defender
02:15 isn't necessarily necessary because you're expending so much energy on offense, having
02:20 one of the highest usage rates in the league, like what Lomelo has, you don't have to necessarily
02:24 be that guy, but he was at that point a little bit. And especially now coming back off this
02:29 injury, having like well over a month off, he probably is pretty fresh apart from having what
02:34 appears to be lingering soreness on every part of his body over the last couple of games. But
02:40 I mean, he's definitely, you know, conditioning wise seems to be at a pretty high level right now.
02:46 And I think just my favorite thing about Lomelo this whole year, but especially over the last
02:50 like couple months, he has flipped from being not even not necessarily flipped from, but he has added
02:56 basically being one of the best and most efficient drivers in the entire league on top of being like
03:03 a high volume floor spacer. Right now Lomelo is seventh in the NBA in drives per game, 16.9.
03:10 He among those players taking 15 drives per game, which there are about 15 players doing that.
03:16 Lomelo is sixth in percentage. He's one of the only guys that's shooting over 52%.
03:19 Like he is getting to the rim at an extremely high volume. He's finishing at over 50% clip, which
03:26 at most of the time, when you think of somebody driving to the rim and finishing around the rim,
03:32 it's a big man that's shooting, you know, well over 50%, near 60%, like all the leaders in the
03:37 league and true shooting percentage for the most part are big men. Well, for Lomelo to be driving
03:41 to the rim at that volume and be efficient, finishing that efficiently is super impressive.
03:46 Like the other guys that are that efficient are like Luka Doncic, Shea, John Morant, Giannis,
03:53 like Tyrese Halliburton is up there. Like there's Zion Williamson is only like what less than one
03:58 percentage point more efficient than Lomelo on a nearly equal amount of drives. Like he's
04:03 legitimately one of the most potent threats going to the rim in the league this year. It's crazy
04:08 what he's added to his game. That's interesting because when you actually look at his rim numbers,
04:13 his percentages, he shot 54% three years in a row, including this year. So I guess what,
04:21 and that actually for a point guards only racks in the 24th percentile, like that is, you know,
04:26 low, low, basically it's not a great percentage. However, I think what you said there is key.
04:31 It's the volume at that percentage is the volume combined. So the percentage might not be brilliant,
04:36 but the volume is exceptionally high. And that ends up talking, you know, that ends up really
04:41 helping. And what that rim percentage doesn't capture is his foul rate, which is absolutely
04:46 well up this year, 8.6% up from 5.3% last year and 7% the year before. So it's a real, like in
04:54 this rookie year is up at 10%, but like at that point, you're not being scouted and like you're
04:59 playing less minutes, but it's clearly getting, he's getting fouled the most. And he's actually
05:04 getting a lot more less like non-shooting fouls, which are interesting. Cause I think he's beginning
05:08 to understand when just to like run into a moving defender and draw a foul kind of out around the
05:13 free throw line. So what those room numbers don't capture is that increased foul rate. And there's
05:19 more free throw attempts per game, which is just adding to his efficiency. But no, it's a really
05:25 good point. And one that I wanted to make as well. So yeah, I think that's that LaMelo ball still
05:30 looking to attack, even after the ankle sprain, something we didn't see when he came back last
05:34 year from injury. He very much stayed outside the three point arc and focused on that.
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