New Orleans Pelicans guard Lonzo Ball was frequently the subject of trade talks the season, with some reports even saying that Ball himself wanted out of New Orleans.
Pelicans executive vice president of basketball operations David Griffin was asked about those rumors Friday and said the Pelicans see Ball as a part of their future moving forward and that the guard does in fact want to be with the franchise.
“He’s not somebody that’s going to walk in front of all of you and go ‘That’s absolute (expletive). I don’t believe xyz’ because that’s not who he is. But quite often that’s what happens and you read a lot of that and I think you can hear a lot of that out there too anecdotally around Lonzo because he’s a fascinating player.
“He’s a guy that can do some spectacular things and what we’ve seen him do is be as hard a worker as we have, improve his shooting as much as you possibly can, be diligent in the weight room… He loves his teammates he’s made it very clear personally 1-to-1 that he wants to be here and yet, what you will read is this is a player who doesn’t want to be here, he’s clearly not in our plans so you should trade him for a ham sandwich.
“Well that doesn’t make any sense when we know that actual story behind Lonzo Ball so I would just tell you be really really careful of the things you read.”
Griffin said the talk surrounding Ball has been unfair considering he is having one of the best seasons of his young career. Ball is averaging a career-high 14.2 points per game while shooting 39 percent from from 3, also a career best.
“Lonzo is one of the most highly scrutinized players I’ve ever seen,” Griffin said. “He has the most polarizing sort of narrative around him that I’ve ever dealt (with). He’s either the greatest player in the NBA or the worst player that’s ever played an apparently there’s no in between.
“And it's been unfair to Lonzo. The whole time, what’s also been unfair to Lonzo, and frankly, I think everybody needs to think about this big picture wise, it’s unfair to every player that deals with this. The noise around the game is so much more significant now that its ever been. The lack of truth in what you can read and what is said is overwhelming.”