There is no question about the talent level of Charlotte Hornets guard LaMelo Ball. The dude has superstar-level skills. However, an anonymous Western Conference scout recently called Ball out for not taking the game seriously enough.
"Yes, he's talented, but he doesn't take basketball seriously enough," the scout said, via ESPN. "It's hard to build a winner with him because of how he plays, and the liberties he takes for himself when he plays.”
In fairness, this is nothing that hasn’t been said about Ball before. Despite his talent, he plays a loose, free-flowing style that doesn’t appear to be conducive to winning. At least it hasn’t been so far in his career. Ball has appeared in 237 total games for Charlotte in his career, and he holds a 100-137 record in those games – not great. Six seasons into his career and Ball has yet to play in a single playoff game.
Now, it’s unfair to pin all of Charlotte’s struggles on Ball. After all, this is an organization that hasn’t won a playoff series since 2002 – when Ball was a one-year old. It would be exceedingly difficult for one player to turn the fortunes of an entire franchise around, but Ball has certainly been unable to do so thus far.
Availability has been a main issue for Ball. Outside of appearing in 75 games during his sophomore season, Ball has never played in more than 51 games in a season for the Hornets. He’s appeared in less than 50 games in each of the last three seasons. It’s tough to lead a team out of the basement of a conference when your availability is inconsistent.
This puts the Hornets in a tough spot moving forward. They’ve run the Ball experiment for a half-decade now and it hasn’t resulted in much success. But, if they tried to trade him, they almost certainly wouldn’t get equal value back given his injury issues, despite his intriguing talent.
"Would someone take a flier on him? For sure,” the scout added. “But Charlotte isn't taking a flier price for him."
There hasn’t been any indication at this point in time that the Hornets are looking to trade Ball, but if things continue to trend south in Charlotte, perhaps that could change. According to one league executive, Ball would probably have more value on the trade market than some of the other big names that have been mentioned as possible trade candidates like Ja Morant and Trae Young.
"If you're asking me if Trae, Ja and LaMelo all came onto the trade market tomorrow, I think LaMelo would have the best market," the executive said. "But that's all hypothetical right now."