James Worthy is as invested in the Los Angeles Lakers as anyone who doesn’t currently play for, coach or run the team. The North Carolina native played 12 years in the NBA, all in Purple and Gold, during which he tallied seven All-Star appearances, three championships and a Finals MVP. Nowadays, the Basketball Hall of Famers tracks the ups and downs of Lonzo Ball, Kyle Kuzma and company as a studio analyst for Spectrum SportsNet, which broadcasts Lakers games in L.A.

Lonzo Wire recently caught up with Worthy, who was promoting All-Star voting—specifically the remaining “2-for-1 days” on Jan. 12 and 15, on which all fan votes cast on NBA.com and the NBA app count twice—to talk Zo and Kuz, which superstars he’d like to see on the Lakers, and what to make of the latest LaVar Ball-Luke Walton controversy.

What follows is a transcript of that phone conversation, lightly edited for clarity and length.

Lonzo Wire: What was your reaction to first catching Lonzo and Kuzma among the top-10 at their positions in the Western Conference in All-Star voting and then to seeing them move up in this week’s update?

James Worthy: That’s a big surprise. I think one of them moved ahead of Damian Lillard in Portland, if I’m not mistaken. That’s unique and different in the All-Star ballot in the modern era. Lonzo comes with a big brand anyway. He came with a lot of popularity, then he came to summer league and was MVP of the summer league and had his own brand going. I think that has to do with popularity. That’s marketing.

Kuzma has played his way into his position. Not to say that Lonzo hasn’t. He’s playing a little bit better of late, and I think people are starting to realize that Ball is a visionary when it comes to point guard. But Kuzma, he surprised everybody being the 27th pick with his stature on the court, his play, his style. It’s very appropriate for the NBA and that’s’ what the fans like: a slasher, a shooter, a creator, a spontaneous player that has a lot of movies and he’s not afraid to play.

It’s a younger audience in the NBA now. A lot of social media, a lot more information. It influences how they vote.

LW: What sort of progress have you seen from Lonzo this season? And where do you think he still needs to improve?

JW: I think a lot of people were putting a lot of focus on his shot. For a while there, he wasn’t shooting well at all, very low percentages. I’m not sure where it is now, but it’s improved a little bit. He’s been knocking down the three the last several games I’ve seen him with consistency. So figuring that out.

Meanwhile, his assists are really good. If he had some shooters around him, some pure shooters, three point shooters or shooters in general, we’d be looking at him a different way. That he’s tremendous talent with a lot of vision.

And his defense is overlooked. He’s been playing some really good defense for a 6-foot-6 guard. He comes from the weak side and blocks shots. He’s a hell of a rebounder. He’s shown some signs of progress the last month, starting before he got injured there.

And going forward, he’s just going to have to be himself, do what he does best. He’ll have to learn how to compete every night. He’ll have to learn how to prepare himself to go up against future Hall of Fame point guards every night. It’s a lot of studying involved, a lot of looking at film. He’s an extension of the coach. I think his assist-to-turnover ratio is amazing. He’s like a really good investment. You’ve just got to wait for it to mature. I think he’s on his way.

LW: What effect have you seen Lonzo have on the team between when he’s played and when he was out with his shoulder injury?

JW: He’s a ball mover, man. He’s extremely unselfish. He’ll get the ball and he’ll look up court. He doesn’t mind letting it go, 40 feet. He gets you the ball before the defense can really get set. He has vision like Magic Johnson, like a Jason Kidd. I’m not saying he’s exactly like those guys. He has that type of IQ for the game. A lot of times, when you catch his passes, you’re shooting it. You’re laying it up or you’re shooting it. You’re not doing anything else. You don’t have to put it on the floor one time. He’s on time, on target, and he’s always looking for his advantage. If a defender turns his head for a split second, he’ll toss a very soft pass over the top for a layup. He’s very, very good at that.

Without him, they didn’t have the pace, they had the selfishness. A lot of point guards, they like to hang onto the ball until the last six seconds and then try to get rid of it. No, he gets rid of it. He finds you when you’re open, not two seconds late or three seconds early. It’s always on time. He has that type of ability. That’s what they missed, and that’s what he brings to the table.

LW: Would you have enjoyed playing with Lonzo?

JW: I would’ve enjoyed playing with him because if you run or you’re a slasher, which I did both, he’ll get you the ball. He does what Magic Johnson used to do. He takes a full snapshot of the floor. Sometimes, when you look at him on an inbound pass, he’s looking up court before he even gets the ball. He gets a rebound, the first thing he does is he takes a snapshot, so he sees where everyone’s running and where they are. He calculates steps. He knows when he takes 10 steps, you’re 12 steps and he knows where to look for you. That’s a talent you can’t see on the stat sheet. If you’re the recipient of some of those passes, you get it.

I thought I was pretty good until Magic Johnson left. When Magic Johnson retired, I realized just how good he was. Lonzo Ball brings that presence. Before Magic came, the Lakers were pretty good. They had Kareem , Jamaal , Norm Nixon. They were decent. But they never could get to the Finals or win a championship. But when Magic came, the ball started moving. And that’s the same thing with Lonzo Ball. The Lakers have been pretty stale. They didn’t have a true point guard. This guy shows up and the buzz returns.

LW: Whether or not he’s an All-Star this year, do you see Lonzo as an All-Star talent going forward?

JW: No question. Put him in the All-Star game with shooters and that kind of talent, I think you can see a guy perform. It’s coming. I don’t know whether he’s an All-Star this year. I wouldn’t say so. But in lieu of the new voting system and a younger audience—not to say older people aren’t voting, we still are. But a younger, global, international voting, a lot of it has to do with social media and who you like. It’s possible that younger players will start to make the All-Star team.

LW: Back to those mental snapshots you were talking about with Lonzo and Magic, is that something you can learn? Or is it innate?

JW: You can’t teach it. It just happens. Guys have a gift. Magic had it. Jason Kidd had it. There’s several guys that had it special, but there’s only a handful that had it like Magic and Jason Kidd. Pistol Pete Maravich had a gift back in the day. There’s a few that had it, see it right away. When you’re playing with someone like that and you’re open, you get open for that split second, you know you’re open, but sometimes, not all guards can get it to you.

That’s the difference between the great vision point guards. They see you because they’re looking at you. They’re looking at everything and they see, looking for mistakes, looking for defenders to make mistakes and they’ll rip it to you. That’s something he possesses. I don’t’ think we’ve seen much of it yet. We’ve seen a glimpse of it, but when they start to get rolling with him, when players get used to his passes, I think we’ll be looking forward to some success with him.

LW: It sounds to me as though, if you were In Magic’s position running the Lakers’ front office, you would prioritize going after shooters. Is that accurate?

JW: You need shooters. Right now, I want Boogie Cousins and Paul George. That’s what I want. You can get some shooters that are not elite players. Once you get a player like a Cousins or somebody like that or a big in the middle or somebody hard to deal with, it’s a lot easier to find shooters.

I wouldn’t necessarily say just a shooter because Paul George can shoot. That’s my wish list. He’s a perfect prototype player. He’s in his late 20s. He’s 6-foot-9. He can shoot the three. He’s a two-way player. He plays on both ends.

Cousins is a monster. Look at guys like Embiid in Philly, you see a different center now. Cousins possesses that. You surround that with some of the young talent we have, you put yourself in a good position.

LW: When you look at Kuzma, there’s not a ton of holes in his game, at least offensively. But what do you see as the biggest areas of improvement for him?

JW: I’m not going to compare him quite to a Klay Thompson yet, but he has that feel. The only thing that’s missing is the other side of the court. If he can become a Kawhi Leonard, a two-way player, if he can become a Klay Thompson where he’s just as impressive on the defensive end and become a lockdown defender—he has the size, he has the quickness, he has the length—I think that’s where he’s going next.

Offensively, he’ll learn to adjust to teams and how they are going to come at him because they’ll try to take away his strengths. That’s when he’ll have to make adjustments. The NBA is about adjustments. You’re going to play a different defense, a different player. He’ll learn whether he can drive. He’ll learn whether he can shoot the outside shot.

But the defense is where i think he can improve, and that’s just a matter of understanding the principles and playing a great player every night. In college, you might play a great player once or twice every two weeks. In the NBA, it’s every night. I remember playing Dr. J on a Tuesday, playing Larry Bird on a Wednesday and then taking Thursday night and going into New York and playing Bernard King. It’s like every night you’re playing against greatness. I think that’s something he’ll adjust to eventually.

LW: Have you ever seen anything quite like the hype around Lonzo?

JW: From my perspective, until you’ve proven yourself, you’re unproven. I’ve never seen that much hype for a player that hasn’t been in the league yet. Michael Jordan, I would say, was the last guy that had that major hype. He was an Olympian coming out of college.

With the way it is now with social media, you’re always under the microscope, you can’t do anything, you can’t go anywhere, you can’t say anything. I think along with that comes a younger crowd who loves the Big Baller Brand. He was big at UCLA, came in the summer league, was MVP, so there’s been a lot of hype around him and factions that have come with that. With the popularity thing is what the NBA and a lot of fans look at than stats, even.

LW: What do you make of LaVar’s latest comments about Luke Walton and his media presence more broadly?

JW: Look, the NBA and the Lakers have been around a long time. They’re going to be around a long time after Lonzo is retired and gone. There’s no place for it. I don’t acknowledge it. I’ve known Luke a long time. I’m pretty sure he’s the right guy for the job.

And as a parent, I think you’ve got to let your kids blossom without too much interference. I’m sure he loves his kids, but I don’t like to see parents who try to live through their kids. It just seems like, to me, there’s too much going on. It’s a distraction, especially when you don’t know anything about the infrastructure of the Los Angeles Lakers and how they run their organization.

I met LaVar once. I think he loves his kids. But I think at some point, you have to let them breathe and live their lives without any added pressure. I don’t know what the relationship is with he and his father, but from the history I’ve never seen it. Luke’s a great coach. He has this team going in the right direction.

LW: Do you agree with the organization’s stance to not address the situation publicly?

JW: I don’t think it’s needed because when you address something that is so abstract from the norm, I think a lot of times you lend power to it. I think sometimes you just need to let it be, focus on the task at hand, which is coaching. And a brand that has been around for a long time, a very successful brand. I think that’s where they should leave it.