Hadn't done anything to the point of halftime, missed a few shots and collected a few fouls.

Time winding down in the fourth and he's gone on a scoring spree, 24 points and counting. Trashy game in general though but still a good effort.

Nice work for his first start.

6 of 9 from deep and 2 monster highlight dunks! He'll start the next handful of games with Roberson injured, if he has a good stretch he may find himself starting permanently for a playoff contender.

Haha yeh, it was a nice travel on one of those dunks!

#NBAVote

Majok Deng must have taken note

Makes you think he was holding back in the NBL....

Makes you think the Lakers are pretty average ;-).

Good on the young fella, it was only a matter of time, he has the talent and showed last year he has a great attitude and workrate.

Hopefully he can consolidate a genuine spot in the rotation ahead of playoffs.

The gap between the NBL and NBA IMO is mainly shooting ability and ball handling. Defence amongst most NBA team is average.

Good on young Ferg, he played well and with confidence.

He didn't hold back in the NBL his contract limited his minutes to keep him healthy. He was here to LEARN, bulk up and

The gap between NBA and NBL is large, but some of the best players in the NBL have a skill set that could fill a role on an NBA court without looking out of place, guys like Conger or Buford, not to be stars just bench rotation players on an average team.

Also if an NBL team signed a role player from the NBA, they may not be even half as effective in the NBL as guys like Cotton or Rotnei, who's games wouldn't hold up in the NBA, this doesn't mean the gap is small because the NBA role player doesn't dominate the NBL.

You can't use a few players to determine the gap in the Leagues.

Anon, if you challenged an average NBA team to scout and shut down an NBL team like they would for a playoff series, the NBL team would struggle to score 50 points in a standard FIBA 40min game, the gap in defense is huge largely due to the size and athletisism.

As a local example, imagine an NBL team trying to score on a team with 3x JP Tokotos, prime Kevin Lisch and Prime AJ Ogilvy, that 5 would be a standard defensive unit in the NBA.

It's hard to talk about a gap between the NBA and the NBL, because what 'standard' is the NBA? The gap between the top and bottom in that competition is significant.

I think quite a few teams around the world would be a good chance of beating the Lakers, including top NBL sides, but even the top Euroleague teams would struggle to beat GSW more than a few times in a 100 tries.

I couldn't see an NBL team beating the Lakers more than once in a blue moon, assuming both teams take the game seriously etc.

Some of the euro super teams could absolutely make it competitive and get some wins, but even with the increase in top end talent in the NBL lately, we're still a ways off

I think you're underestimating how important the way a team functions is in basketball. Top Euroleague teams would pound the Lakers, they are just far too clinical, organised and smart.

Paul I rate the top Euro teams very highly, we'll above NBL, but if you take one of those teams and played the Lakers in a 7 game series being treated as serious as an NBA playoff series, not pre season, Lakers would sweep or maybe drop one away game... I hate the Lakers btw.

And don't give me the "If it were Fiba rules the Euro team could zone" reason because if it were FIBA rules and you allowed the Lakers to practice and play a zone their length and athletisism would be a nightmare for the outmatched Euro team.

None of that. The top Euroleague teams would beat the bottom teams in the NBA because they have as much talent, if not more, are better organised and play as a team.

Those lesser NBA teams will have an advantage in athleticism, but will find it hard to exploit that due to their lack of team play and, in a lot of cases, average coaching.

Paul, I guess we can agree to disagree with the matchup of athletisism vs team play, even though I think with NBA rules the 1 on 1 play with forced spacing favours the NBA team, then if its FIBA rules the NBA teams help D and rim protection is impossible for the Euros to deal with, so either way NBA wins, but I do take your point in that it's a worthy conversation... But better coaching???

Even if you think a top Euro coach may be better than an NBA coach individually, the resources with analytics, scouting and pure numbers of quality assistants would mean the NBA team has a huge advantage in coaching and preparation if it were a playoff series.