Podcast: Can the Lakers get full production from LeBron James and Brandon Ingram together?

Lonzo Ball made his preseason debut and, quite frankly, that should’ve been enough to convince anyone who couldn’t make up their minds about him and Rajon Rondo that Ball should be playing the bigger role for the Los Angeles Lakers this year.

That’s where today’s episode of Locked on Lakers begins, and while overreacting to a single preseason game is easy to do, the analysis that came from Wednesday’s game continued to enforce what the evidence showed last year. Ball is just a better basketball player right now than Rondo is.

Pete and I discussed what we saw from Lonzo on both ends of the court and to summarize, we were impressed. Ball was obviously rusty to start the game — which is to be expected given how much time he’s missed — but once he fell into the rhythm of the action, he got right back to the habits that made him such an impactful player last year.

We segue from Lonzo talk to a trend we’ve both noticed (and is backed up statistically) throughout the preseason: Brandon Ingram has been very good, but especially when LeBron James is sitting.

This begs the question: Is there a way to get Ingram to be as impactful even when he shares the court with James? To answer in short, yes, but it’s going to take a concerted effort from everyone involved. From where I’m sitting, though, I think everyone is talented enough to make it work. But I’ll cop to optimism based on me -wanting it to work.

We finish the show on a hot take, because I know how much you guys enjoy when I do that kind of thing.

As always, this is just a tidbit of the full context given in the show. Listen to the full discussion below and please check out old episodes, or guarantee you won’t miss any ever again by subscribing on iTunes.