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The Los Angeles Lakers are set to workout LiAngelo Ball and five other draft prospects on Wednesday, and while most of the players’ the team has looked at heading into the 2018 NBA Draft didn’t get to warm up in the facility the night before, most players aren’t the younger brother of Lonzo Ball.
Because of that Big Baller Brotherly connection, LiAngelo got to get an early chance to test out the Lakers’ rims and show off his athletic prowess in the UCLA Health Training Center Tuesday night (via Lonzo’s Instagram story):
Now that game seven is over I figure this is a good time to show you LiAngelo getting a head start on his Lakers workout tomorrow pic.twitter.com/ECVvEJXTfw
— Harrison Faigen (@hmfaigen) May 29, 2018
That was an impressive dunk from LiAngelo, who is a better leaper than one might expect for his size. However — potentially unfortunately for LiAngelo — the Lakers will be looking at a lot more than his athletic prowess.
The middle Ball brother is viewed as a long shot to be drafted, and isn’t even listed in ESPN’s top-100 2018 prospects, despite his recent assertion that he’d be willing to play on any NBA team, not just the Lakers. He is mostly seen as a fringe NBA prospect at best, and will have to impress teams wary of his questionable past and father with no filter to even get a summer league invite.
However, home court advantage exists, and while the UCLA Health Training Center might not be LiAngelo’s home yet, every little bit of familiarity with a gym can help athletes — even if all hoops are technically the same.
It would be a bit much to suggest one private workout with his older brother in the Lakers’ gym would be enough to get LiAngelo ready to wow the front office, but some extra comfort in the gym certainly can’t hurt his chances.
All stats per sports-reference.com. A full list of every prospect we know the Lakers have worked out is available here. You can follow Harrison on Twitter at @hmfaigen, or support his work via Venmo here or Patreon here.