In an ideal world the laminar flow offers the least drag. But laminar flow is not a requirement for producing lift at all. The wings can do just fine with tubulent flow over them. And remember that the goal of using dimples, trip strips, sawtooth strips, raised tabs or any other form of turbulation is to generate a very thin layer of tubulent flow next to the airfoil's skin. It's not like we're talking about forcing the airflow away from the wing.


Why we resort to generating this turbulence on purpose is because due to other choices or factors our wing may not be able to support a good laminar flow over the entire chord over the whole range of lift coefficients we want to achieve. Especially at the higher angles the laminar flow can separate. When it does this from a laminar state it forms much bigger, and therefore more draggy, bubbles or an earlier stall than the same airfoil would if it had some way of inducing a thin turbulent flow. A thin layer of turbulences acts like a stickly layer to hold the laminar flow close to the airfoil's skin under harsher conditions.

And conditions do not get any more harsh than with a sphere. Whether lesser drag due to a smaller wake or to enhance the Magnus effect to generate lift to fly further is a moot point. Regardless of which reason was primary the dimples do act to reduce the size of the wake. And a smaller wake means less drag. And while it's sort of a happy "Two For One" solution the primary point for this discussion on aerodynamics is the drag issue..