Home / NBA / Los Angeles Lakers / Lonzo Ball Records Second Triple-Double In Last Five Games Against Nuggets

Lonzo Ball Records Second Triple-Double In Last Five Games Against Nuggets

Amid all of the criticism of his game, Lonzo Ball continues to do everything on the basketball court well besides shooting the ball. On most nights, Ball is filling up the stat sheet in more ways than one. Nobody expected Ball to be putting up the rebounds, steals, and block numbers that he is this season. His passing has also been great and has translated well into the NBA. He is averaging over seven assists, but his scoring totals are what has all the haters chirping.

Why the hate?

In today’s social media world, everything Ball does is overly critiqued and analyzed. He even got a bunch of flack on Twitter for not participating in a childish shoving match against the Phoenix Suns because he walked away from it.

Most of the criticism about Ball has been about his awkward shooting form and his unaggressive attitude to score the basketball. Popular media personalities have been majorly critical of Ball in his short career.

It also does not help that his father Lavar and his family are constantly making headlines for all the wrong reasons. His brother was caught shoplifting in China and created an international incident and Lavar even got into a battle of words with the President of the United States because of it. All this negative publicity makes people want to root against Lonzo to no fault of his own.

Silencing the critics for one night

With his second triple-double in five games, Ball put the critics to bed for the night against the Nuggets. He also proved that his first one against the Bucks was no fluke.

He has put himself into the category of the few players in the NBA that can go for a triple-double on any given night. It only took Ball 17 games to record two triple-doubles. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, only five players needed fewer games to record two career triple-doubles in NBA history. It only took Oscar Robertson three games, fellow rookie Ben Simmons only took nine games, Hambone Williams took 10 games, Magic Johnson only took 12 games, and Connie Hawkins took 14 games. This puts him in an elite group of players that includes multiple Hall of Famers.

If Ball was shooting the ball better he would easily be in the hunt for the rookie of the year. However, for now, it looks like fellow triple-double threat Ben Simmons is running away with the award. Ball and Simmons’ seasons have been historic so far, they are the first pair of rookies with multiple triple-doubles before their 20th game in the same season per Elias.

Even though he is being criticized all over the place, Ball is still having a solid rookie season. Magic Johnson has put his reputation on the line drafting Lonzo Ball and everything that came with him. So he will be happy to know that he and Ball are only two Lakers to have multiple triple-doubles in their rookie seasons. In his introductory press conference, Magic told everyone Lonzo’s jersey would be retired one day, and if he keeps producing triple-doubles at this rate, Magic might not be wrong.

Cameron Salce

Latest posts by Cameron Salce (see all)