Time may be ticking on LaMelo Ball’s run in Charlotte.
The Charlotte Hornets will not hesitate to trade LaMelo Ball if his tenure with the team continues to go south, Kevin O’Connor of Yahoo! Sports reports this week. O’Connor made the claim during the latest episode of his self-titled podcast.
“We’ll see how that all pans out in the years to come. and what they end up doing with LaMelo,” said O’Connor, per HoopsHype. “I do know one thing, a new front office, new ownership, they would not hesitate to move on from LaMelo Ball if he continues to sour over the remainder of this contract.”
The 24-year-old Ball was Charlotte’s No. 3 overall pick during the 2020 NBA Draft and blossomed into an All-Star by 2022. He averaged 25.2 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 7.4 assists per game for the Hornets last season and continues to be the face of the franchise, such that Charlotte rewarded him with a five-year, $203.9 million extension in 2023.
But Ball also comes with some major flaws as a player. He is the evolutionary archetype of a modern shot-chucker, throwing up 21.3 field goal attempts per game last season (including an absurd 11.2 attempts per game from deep) and only posting underwhelming 41/34/84 shooting splits. Ball is extremely turnover-prone as well (3.6 giveaways per game last season) and, perhaps most troublesome, is very often injured, missing 35 or more games in each of the last three years running.
The Hornets, who went a miserable 19-63 last season, were recently sold by longtime owner Michael Jordan and subsequently purchased by the new majority owners Rick Schnall and Gabe Plotkin. With Ball additionally facing questions about his fit with other players and even about his off-court judgment, it sounds like the new ownership group is keeping every option on the table at this point with Ball’s future in Charlotte.
