Lakers Draft: Luke Walton says scouts plan to discuss LaVar Ball with Lonzo's former UCLA coach

If he gets drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers, Lonzo Ball will be joining an organization with a rookie front office, second year head coach, one of the league’s youngest cores and be expected to perform right away by arguable the NBA’s hungriest fan bases.

Any distraction at all will make the already daunting task of competing in this insane Pacific Division (let alone Western Conference) basically impossible. This is why the Lakers will be doing their due diligence with a character as abrasive as LaVar Ball has been, even though the focus should be squarely on his son.

Friday morning, Luke Walton appeared on The Dan Patrick Show and was asked about how the team might handle LaVar during the scouting process and whether he might specifically speak to Lonzo’s former head coach Steve Alford about how things were behind the scenes.

“I wouldn’t personally, but yeah, somebody in our organization will. Absolutely,” Walton said.

For full context, here’s the clip:

I do find it somewhat noteworthy that Walton wouldn’t be interested in having that conversation from on head coach to another. These guys operate in a fraternity given their unique experiences, so one would think Luke would want to get Alford’s account of last year from him firsthand.

Both Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka have stated that they aren’t concerned with LaVar’s antics, either, but again, with all things being equal (and they rarely are), it’s just hard not to think they’d rather not deal with another agenda behind the scenes that might not fully prioritize the entire team’s well-being.

It will certainly be interesting to hear what the scouting department relays to Walton, Johnson and Pelinka about the experience of dealing with LaVar for an entire season, if that information ever becomes available.