Ronnie Price Getting Unique Chance to Shine with Los Angeles Lakers

A quintessential basketball journeyman, Ronnie Price knocked around the league for nine seasons, averaging 3.4 points in 11.7 minutes per game. Now he’s getting an improbable chance to shine with the Los Angeles Lakers.

Signed on the eve of training camp, Price doesn’t have a guaranteed contract. Yet the 31-year-old point guard started five out of seven exhibition games and might have continued that streak on opening night of the regular season, save for a right knee bone bruise—the result of a collision with Darren Collison of the Sacramento Kings during the last game of the preseason.

Banging into opponents is nothing new for Price, a player with plenty of speed on the offensive end and a dogged defensive intensity.

Speaking with Dave Miller for TWC SportsNet, the veteran guard elaborated on his priorities:

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I pride myself on defense. That’s the only thing on the basketball court that I can control. I can’t control whether shots are going in, or if things like that are happening for me. But the one thing I can control is the way I compete on the defensive end. That’s something that takes effort and takes discipline every night.

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Price was only 5’7” when he graduated high school in Friendswood, Texas. College scouts weren’t exactly knocking down his door with offers. But the diminutive guard walked onto the basketball team at Nicholls State in Thibodaux, Louisiana, attracting enough attention as a freshman to earn a scholarship to Utah Valley State, which was then a junior college in the process of becoming a university.

College can be a time of unexpected growth in many ways—Price shot up by a remarkable seven inches to 6’2” by the time he graduated. He was named Division I Independent Player of the Year as a senior—Utah Valley still had provisional status in 2005. 

In his final college game, Price scored 36 points in a win against Northern Colorado. After it was over, Wolverines coach Dick Hunsaker said, "What a fairy-tale ending for a fairy-tale career for Ronnie Price. It's more than a dream come true."

The dream hit a bump in the road when Price wasn't chosen in the 2005 NBA draft. Still, he continued undeterred, signing with the Sacramento Kings, where he played for two seasons, followed by four more with the Utah Jazz. Since then he’s been with the Phoenix Suns, Portland Trail Blazers and Orlando Magic.

Last season, Price averaged 2.4 points and 2.1 assists in 31 games. He was waived by the Magic in July.

The Lakers headed into camp this season in need of backcourt depth—Steve Nash had worked all summer to get healthy, but a chronically injured, 40-year-old back was a long shot bet at best. Price got a call and packed his bags—his nomadic, under-the-radar journey would get one more shot.

As it turned out, Nash appeared in just three exhibition games before his body definitively betrayed him. The team and the two-time MVP confirmed that his season was over before it began. The news was first broken and reported by Bleacher Report’s Kevin Ding.

Price was a leading story throughout camp and the preseason, an unsung role player thrust into the spotlight on a team whose recent fortunes have fallen off.

Seven points, 4.7 assists and 1.6 steals in 25.6 minutes over seven appearances—not exactly All-Star quality, but the stats would be career highs for Price during the regular season. But more than numbers, it’s a tough, no-nonsense attitude that is earning the trust of his coach.

Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press

Said Byron Scott after practice on Oct. 13: “He’s just a tough little son of a you-know-what. He gets into people, he doesn’t back down to anybody, he’s a veteran. He’s got great experience and he’s got a motor.”

Price is still one of the quickest guards in the league. He can push the ball and finish at the rim on the offensive end, and he has quick hands and good lateral moves when defending the ball.

And while he might have gone out with a bone bruise just days earlier, he was back in time for the season opener against the Houston Rockets on Tuesday night as the first Laker off the bench. That’s what Price is all about—he’s not going to average a lot of points, but he’s all heart and hustle.

What will the journeyman’s role ultimately be in the rotation? Will he go back to a starter’s role as he did throughout much of the preseason or is Jeremy Lin’s superior scoring power needed before games get out of hand? 

So far, the season is just one game old and already rotations are being largely affected by the continuation of a mind-boggling injury curse—the latest numbing example being rookie Julius Randle going down with a broken leg in his very first NBA game.

The road to basketball relevance and longevity is littered with broken dreams, injuries and failure to launch. Being a lottery pick doesn’t assure success, and simply getting drafted doesn’t guarantee even a single NBA game.

But 10 seasons after going undrafted out of Utah Valley State, Ronnie Price is getting a chance to shine in Los Angeles. Sometimes dreams do come true.