Lonzo Ball was shut down for the rest of the season after suffering a Grade 3 ankle sprain in January. While the Lakers season was in limbo, his absence didn’t help and now, there’s no real reason to force him to come back to a team that doesn’t have a shot at the playoffs.
As reported by Shams Charania for The Athletic, Lonzo is already looking ahead to the summer.
On @TheAthleticNBA: Lakers' Lonzo Ball opens up for first time since January and recent shutdown: "I'm very, very motivated … It's been frustrating. This is going to be a new summer, most definitely." https://t.co/UDZ2RnPrbK
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) March 13, 2019
Just before the trade deadline, pretty much every player on the team not named LeBron James was involved in trade talks. Fans could instantly see that it wasn’t going to be good for the team when the trade for Anthony Davis didn’t happen. It’s a business, but that doesn’t mean that everyone enjoys being involved in trade talks.
Thankfully, it appears that Lonzo isn’t going to concern himself with whether or not he’ll be traded this summer. He’s focused on improving his craft since this will be the first summer where he’s been healthy. Here’s what he said to The Athletic about potentially being traded:
“At the end of the day, you can only control the things that you can control,” Ball told The Athletic. “If I get traded, then I get traded. But I’m going to be ready to go. The goal is to be the best player I can for whichever team.”
We’ll have to wait and see what moves the Lakers make over the summer, but they definitely need to do something. Even though there were injuries this season, the team still lost a lot of games that they should have easily won against bad teams.
