LaMelo Ball's sinful, devilish brand of basketball is back

Basketball offers many opportunities to dominate your opponent. Physical dominance is the most obvious, but the most impressive route is almost psychosocial. That said, it's exciting to see an offensive player challenge a defender to a duel of fantasy where basketball becomes a one-sided guessing game. Can you think like me? Can you move exactly the way you imagine I can? Or am I about to blow your mind? I've often thought about this dynamic with Allen Iverson. Last week I thought about this regarding LaMelo Ball, who is in the midst of a glorious hot streak in his long-awaited return to the game.

Case in point: Game 2 of the Charlotte Hornets regular season. Hornets-Hawks in Atlanta, third quarter. A bad pass from Clint Capela is intercepted by LaMelo, who strolls into the frontcourt with Dyson Daniels and Trae Young as Atlanta's only defensive linemen. Ball takes a long gallop step right on the Hawks' logo at center court, a sign that the aspiring all-world defenseman had better strap in for one of LaMelo's jaunts in transition. But at that exact moment, Ball sapped all momentum as he stood over the top of the arc, 26 feet from the basket, and made the most casual 3-pointer ever with 21 seconds left on the shot clock. An absolutely mind-numbing moment of classic Ball Brothers audacity. I smile. All I hear is LaVar Ball's voice in my head from all these years ago. “All you’re trying to do is get a good shot,” the Ball Patriarch once told me in 2016. “There’s nothing I can do about it if we get it in the first two or three seconds.”

Please forgive me for getting a little nostalgic. It's been almost eight and a half years since I wrote the very first story published on The wrestler Main website: an article about the Ball family after a legendary 35-0 undefeated season in high school basketball – and what it said about the future of basketball at large. It was titled “Be Like Steph?” and examined how the Ball brothers were influenced by the Golden State Warriors, who reached the Finals in the greatest regular season in NBA history. (Heh.) The story put Lonzo and LaVar in the spotlight, because of course it did. Lonzo was the National Player of the Year and brought his unique perspective on the game to UCLA. LaVar was the garrulous visionary.

This Chino Hills era was a fleeting setback to basketball's status quo, little glimmers and fragments of where the game could soon be heading: unobtrusive full-length polo passes from Lonzo into the corners for wide-open threes, back when Nikola Jokic was doing it had yet to share the forecourt with Jusuf Nurkic; ridiculous pull-up jumpers that were more than 30 feet from the basket and flew at the same time as Steph Curry's, more than two years before Damian Lillard fully embraced the deep 3; a breakneck pace that would have fit right into the Indiana Pacers' 2023-24 plans, creating space and width on both ends X– And j-Axles.

LaMelo was 14 years old at the time and weighed maybe 120 pounds soaking wet. Aside from LaVar's bold declarations of supremacy among his sons, there was no telling what could or would become of the youngest. LaMelo's journey as a teenager from a semi-pro league founded by his father to Lithuania to Australia further obscured LaMelo's true professional prowess – but there was never any doubt about his talent. He has always played with a proprietary blend of inappropriateness. Like someone who was not only encouraged but goaded into shooting from half court at the age of seven, someone who as a child was only allowed to play against kids twice his age and twice his height, someone who has a basic understanding feel for what he can get away with because he had to get away with it things throughout his life. He was raised to be out of line and trained to play without restraint. LaMelo was trained to represent the future of basketball in an almost wild way, as envisioned by a former New York Jets training squad defensive end with grand (but vague) ideas about world domination.

To say all this: LaMelo plays a sinful, evil brand of basketball. It rules.

The allure of LaMelo has never really been about the effectiveness of his game, but rather the potential that lies at the core of his talent — and what it could look like at the highest levels of basketball. It made sense that Lonzo was our introduction to the family – the deep threes and Hail Mary passes were part of his repertoire, but in measured doses; It was a fitting foundation for the dazzling chaos to come from LaMelo. Seeing Lonzo followed by LaMelo was like watching a flash of light make its way through the darkness. Because we know how these things usually work. Big Sports as a general entity responds to ideas and possibilities with derision and skepticism by default, until those same cores become established blueprints that risk-averse organizations eventually shamelessly duplicate. What is LaMelo if not the new archetypal leading man – a big, sharp-shooting ball-handler with vision and feeling?

Of course it was easier to deal with Ideas from Lonzo and LaMelo, considering how rarely we've seen them on the court in recent years. Their post-hype narrative has unfortunately evolved into a story of brothers facing a twist of fate. LaMelo missed 106 of a possible 164 regular season games over the past two seasons. Lonzo missed more than two and a half Seasons– a period of more than 1,000 days – during which he recovered from numerous left knee ailments that required bone grafting and tendon and cartilage grafts. Their bodies have failed them so far, the disappointment of the lost seasons displacing the unique, joyful nature of their respective styles. LaMelo is currently ranked 53rd The wrestlerS Top 100 player rankings, which feels hysterically low at this point. Lonzo has shown the world in fleeting moments on the court over the past week that he is who he has always been: an atmospheric presence on the court, so seamlessly integrated into the flow of attack and defense that he is not affected by the whole thing distinguishing more is essential to its function. Even after such a long absence, his influence was undeniable: Through three games, the Bulls have outscored their opponents by 20.3 points per 100 possessions with Lonzo on the court, the highest net rating on the team for any player who played regular minutes. They are outscored at a rate of 13.6 points per 100 possessions when he's not there. But luck has eluded him once again. On Tuesday, the Bulls announced that Lonzo will be re-evaluated in 10 days after he suffered a right wrist injury in Monday's win over the Grizzlies. LaMelo will have to carry the family mantle alone for now. And what he was able to achieve after a week of play is nothing short of amazing.

LaMelo has broken through after an offseason spent strengthening his ankles, much like Steph did after his own injury issues early in his career. It would make sense for LaMelo to be plagued by the reluctance that comes from recurring injuries, but he has thrown himself into the fire this season. The Hornets star has always been a surprisingly efficient 3-point shooter, but in his first week of action he has carved out a new trajectory for himself: Only Steph has averaged 12 3-point attempts per game for an entire season, while making at least 40 Hits scored percent of it. That's the company LaMelo keeps in the first week of the season.

When it comes to his overall development, it's arguably even more intriguing: LaMelo's command of the Hornets' offense takes on new dimensions. He is averaging 31.7 points per game, third-highest in the league, and his free throw rate is at an all-time high (38.7 percent) after the first week of play, mirroring Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's rate in his age-23 season (38.5 percent). With full confidence in his freedom of movement, LaMelo is averaging the most drives per game of his career. Now that he's finally generating consistent pressure at the rim, the Hornets' drive-and-kick game will really take off – or at least it should if the Hornets ever start converting on some of their open attempts. (After a week of play, only Young and James Harden have more potential assists.)

The attention LaMelo attracts only increases as he refines his exit strategy in the maw of the defense. While he lacks the vertical momentum to consistently score points around the rim, he found success early on with a sort of floaty running around the lane, taking advantage of his deceleration skills with his off-tempo and fake jumps. The next step — something SGA has perfected during his years with the Thunder — might simply be the ability to win by absorbing contact and finishing plays even when he's leaking in the paint. LaMelo has always had innate talent, but finding ways to improve his game could be the key to unlocking his potential as a true offensive player. It's not hard to imagine a forward thrust on a goofy runner moving in the air becoming something of a signature move.

And when it all clicks – when LaMelo becomes a 6-foot-4 passing expert who draws fouls at a near-elite rate, shoots and hits 3s with legendary frequency, and still has what it takes to surprise us with the most amazing surprises to surprise no-no-yes plays we'll ever see – wouldn't he be one of the most fearsome offensive forces the league has ever seen? I guess that's what I've been fishing for this whole time. The Ball brothers have been part of the larger basketball consciousness for nearly a decade. Despite everything and anything they've fought to get back on the court, their game still has the ability to expand our imagination.