Lakers News: Lamar Odom says Lonzo Ball is going to be ‘special’

It’s impossible to know just yet exactly how good Lonzo Ball will ultimately be, but the Los Angeles Lakers have to feel a lot more confident in their rookie point guard after the waves and waves of praise he’s received this summer.

Ball’s fellow rookies recently voted him as the most likely player to have the best career in his class as well as getting the nod as the best playmaker of the group in the recent NBA rookie survey, and young players aren’t the only ones to like what they’ve seen so far from Ball. Former Lakers forward Lamar Odom saw Ball workout when he was hanging around the coaching staff and talking about a potential role over the summer.

While Odom told Shams Charania of the Vertical he ultimately wasn’t quite ready to take on a coaching job just yet, it certainly sounds like he was impressed with what he saw from Ball during those pre-draft sessions:

“You could tell he will be special,” Odom told Charania.

There are plenty of reasons to believe Odom’s assessment, from Ball’s MVP-turn at Las Vegas Summer League to the way his transcendent passing turned UCLA from a chore to watch into arguably the most aesthetically pleasing team in the country during his freshman season.

How “special” Ball will be in his rookie season remains to be seen, but all the tools are certainly there for him to live up to Odom’s words and then some over the course of his career.

Harrison Faigen is co-host of the Locked on Lakers podcast (subscribe here), and you can follow him on Twitter at @hmfaigen.