My Lamelo Ball thoughts as a Hornets fan
Hello and welcome to rooting for one of the more misunderstood players in the NBA. Lamelo Ball has many sharp strengths and weaknesses and is one of the most unique talents in the NBA. You are now burdened with the impossible task of defending this genuine cartoon character of a human being.
Off the court:
When the Hornets had the number 3 pick in the 2020 draft I remember doing lots of reading about Lamelo and a hornets reporter did a series of interviews with his teammates in the NBL. The picture they painted was of a kid who was very misunderstood, he was an excellent teammate, very kind, and a genuinely joyous person to be around. While the media portrays Lamelo as kind of a punk, you really will not find a single quote from anyone who has ever played with him characterizing him as such. Even Gordon Haywards midwestern sensibilities in stark contrast to Lamelos eccentric ways always praised him as a teammate. He is overall pretty quiet, you dont see him partying around charlotte, he doesnt make any podcast appearances, and he doesnt really do much public facing stuff or team content. Its a bit strange seeing a dude in a lime green Lambo buying toilet paper in Target but that is Lamelo Ball. By all accounts he absolutely lives at the gym. Lamelo is however, and I don't say this lightly, one of the biggest dumbasses of any professional athlete. I think sometimes people mistake this for him being a punk, and he doesnt do himself many favors here, but compared to Ja/Trae and the other guys he's been grouped with nobody says a bad word about his character. I cant imagine that shit like his car wreck and not showing up to his depositions repeatedly didnt contribute to him being traded though. He needs to grow up, but i dont think he is a bad person. Hes been in the spotlight since he was 14 and didnt have any semblance of a normal childhood, and its easy to see that he stopped going to school as a freshman in college. You wonder what he looks like if he got to go to UCLA like his brother and have a more normal path, although the fact that he spent his youth playing against people much older is arguably what caused his development. Lamelo is an easy personality to root for, hes just kind of an idiot savant.
On the court:
Im 32 so Alonzo and Grandmama were before my time and Lamelo is comfortably the most talented Hornet I've ever seen. The ball is on an absolute string with him in a way that seems impossible for someone so tall. He is a lights out shooter of the ball who has to be guarded at every spot on the court. He uses this to get by people he otherwise could not, but he really struggles at rim finishing. Often instead of taking a contested layup or going to the rim and getting fouled, Lamelo will initiate a blender of rotations and the ball will end up in the right spot(https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/1qsgere/highlight_lamelo_ball_and_brandon_miller_take/). His poor finishing numbers are the biggest weakness he has on offense, if he made layups at a league average rate he would be an MVP type talent. This stems from in my mind a lack of physicality, he is 6'8 and has never weighed in officially over 200 or even 190 pounds. He gets zero calls because of this, he has an exceptionally frustrating whistle. Refs straight up dont buy it when he tries to sell calls. This can be an annoying experience, but I think playing with someone like Edwards who has tons of rim pressure and physicality will make a nice yin and yang. Gobert is also assured to have an excellent offensive season as he is such a great screener and lob threat and Lamelo plays off of those guys extremely well. Lamelo is an incredible rebounder as well who just has a nose for the ball and when he pulls down a rebound especially a long rebound, he can get the offense in gear in seconds. He is genuinely one of the most fun players to watch when he gets hot. He is a one-dimensional scorer and that is the biggest weakness in his offensive game.
Concerns:
Our team never had a particularly great clutch record with Lamelo. You can point to a lack of physicality on the roster that extended past Lamelo but which he definitely contributed to, or the fact that Lamelo is a fairly one dimensional scorer. You can also point to some boneheaded decisions on his part, but it was a fairly consistent theme last year that we either blew the doors off teams or lost in a close game. I think its pretty fair to call Lamelo a bit of a frontrunner. He can definitely get frustrated and out of his game if he feels like the refs are allowing the other team to be physical with him and he is getting called for touch fouls (this happens often since he has limited physicality and a poor defensive reputation). He can be prone to frustration fouls and taking himself out of the game(this happened less when we started really rolling but it wasn't uncommon before). Obviously you guys are all familiar with the injury concerns, but for the most part the injuries were fairly freak accidents. There were rumors early last year though that his ankles were swelling up when his minutes got too high, but we did get through the year without him being really hurt.
One concern I have about Lamelo that i haven't really heard echoed in the media though is that you can make the argument that from his sophomore year to his 6th year, he never really got much better. Sure he was injured all the time during that stretch, but Lamelo still has pretty much all of the same strengths and weaknesses he did as a rookie, and hasn't put much weight on either. Last year we built an incredible team around him with excellent shooting and offensive rebounding, and it allowed him to genuinely thrive, but the lack of physicality, lack of finishing strength, and late game poor decisions were all still there.
Overall:
Lamelo fucking rocks to root for. He is basically a Danny McBride character who plays basketball professionally and makes your team visibly have so much fun when he is out there. The joy he plays with is extremely apparent and very infectious. I've heard your team had some bickering last year and I think that's kind of followed Gobert around for most of his career, but Lamelo brought life to my miserable ass franchise so surely he can make a team that is already winning at a high level more joyous. I think he makes more sense as a sidekick type player and I will be extremely happy if he finds success. I understand why both teams made the trade but I would not have done it. I liked rooting for Lamelo and will always root for him. I wish he made his damn layups though