Ball Don't Lie: The LaMelo Ball Thread

[BigSlam]

As great as he is currently playing, I do also envision a rookie wall at some point. I do believe at some point this year (maybe the 50ish game mark) we could see a different LB, but who knows.

I was thinking about this last night.

For the most part this season he’s seemed like he’s still had energy to burn at the end of games, but he was being used less.

In his last 5 games he’s played over 30MPG and in his last 2 over 35MPG.

It’ll be interesting to see how the added mins impact him.

[Hornet Mania]

Watch on YouTube

The end of this interview killed me for some reason.

"Thank y'all, have a good day. Wear y'alls masks!" (quote starts at 3:12)

The coaches must have been harping on mask protocol a lot

[James Gatz]

He already looks like the 2nd best player on the team.

Hayward
LaMelo
Rozier
Zeller
PJ

You could maybe swap PJ and Zeller, but thats how I rank the top 5. That conveniently should be the starting 5 now imo.

Where would you rank LaMelo amongst the other young PG’s in the league?

Guys like:

Fox
Young
Morant
SGA

In terms of what? How good they are are now or how good their careers are likely to be?

[Rich4114]

What are the chances JB puts LaMelo back on the bench once Graham and PJ are healthy? He has to make a tough decision. I know he doesn’t want to move Devonte or Terry to the bench. That was made clear when he started Tri-Guard last night. But he has to accept it and pick one. It should probably be Devonte to come off the bench at this point.

[BigSlam]

He already looks like the 2nd best player on the team.

Hayward
LaMelo
Rozier
Zeller
PJ

You could maybe swap PJ and Zeller, but thats how I rank the top 5. That conveniently should be the starting 5 now imo.

Where would you rank LaMelo amongst the other young PG’s in the league?

Guys like:

Fox
Young
Morant
SGA

In terms of what? How good they are are now or how good their careers are likely to be?

I was thinking more long term.

Like, if you had to chose one of these PG’s to build a franchise around, what order would you rank them?

[Braggins]

I think Graham will come of the bench. Rozier/Melo/Hayward/PJ/Cody will probably start from here on out. I think the thing against Utah was just a matchup thing because they also start a small backcourt.

[James Gatz]

Where would you rank LaMelo amongst the other young PG’s in the league?

Guys like:

Fox
Young
Morant
SGA

In terms of what? How good they are are now or how good their careers are likely to be?

I was thinking more long term.

Like, if you had to chose one of these PG’s to build a franchise around, what order would you rank them?

It's tough probably like

Trae

Ja

Fox
Ball
Shai

would be where I'm at right now but it's fairly close overall. At this point I went with the more proven commodities. Having Ball over SGA might be a mistake but I like LaMelos fit as a #2 more than Shai.

[luciano-davidwesley]

In terms of what? How good they are are now or how good their careers are likely to be?

I was thinking more long term.

Like, if you had to chose one of these PG’s to build a franchise around, what order would you rank them?

It's tough probably like

Trae

Ja

Fox
Ball
Shai

would be where I'm at right now but it's fairly close overall. At this point I went with the more proven commodities. Having Ball over SGA might be a mistake but I like LaMelos fit as a #2 more than Shai.

I'm just curious as to why you rate a 6'1 one-way player WAY above the other guys? I get he's a great offensive player but how many superstars that don't play great defense win championships? I'd take Ja any day over Trae and the way things are heading (early days) Ball as well.

[driveandkick]

I was thinking more long term.

Like, if you had to chose one of these PG’s to build a franchise around, what order would you rank them?

It's tough probably like

Trae

Ja

Fox
Ball
Shai

would be where I'm at right now but it's fairly close overall. At this point I went with the more proven commodities. Having Ball over SGA might be a mistake but I like LaMelos fit as a #2 more than Shai.

I'm just curious as to why you rate a 6'1 one-way player WAY above the other guys? I get he's a great offensive player but how many superstars that don't play great defense win championships? I'd take Ja any day over Trae and the way things are heading (early days) Ball as well.

I agree. I think Trae has become a bit overrated tbh. He’s a great player but I don’t ever see him being a top 5 guy like some people clearly do

[BigSlam]

It's tough probably like

Trae

Ja

Fox
Ball
Shai

would be where I'm at right now but it's fairly close overall. At this point I went with the more proven commodities. Having Ball over SGA might be a mistake but I like LaMelos fit as a #2 more than Shai.

Agreed, it is tough - and likely not that fair considering the others have a few NBA seasons under their belts and LaMelo is only a quarter way through his 1st with an seriously interrupted offseason.

For now, I’d rank them:
Morant

Fox
Ball
Young

SGA

But that could easily change over the next 2 years.

[James Gatz]

I was thinking more long term.

Like, if you had to chose one of these PG’s to build a franchise around, what order would you rank them?

It's tough probably like

Trae

Ja

Fox
Ball
Shai

would be where I'm at right now but it's fairly close overall. At this point I went with the more proven commodities. Having Ball over SGA might be a mistake but I like LaMelos fit as a #2 more than Shai.

I'm just curious as to why you rate a 6'1 one-way player WAY above the other guys? I get he's a great offensive player but how many superstars that don't play great defense win championships? I'd take Ja any day over Trae and the way things are heading (early days) Ball as well.

I don't know if any of these guys win championships. I don't think any of these guys are certain to become top 10 players required to win a title. For me, you're hoping for improvement from all of them. If Trae gets 20% better then how good is his offense? How much better could he get on defense?

I think Trae is actually getting underrated now due to the James Harden effect. He's not particularly fun to watch play with the foul drawing and non defense but it doesn't mean he isn't the best of the bunch.

I wouldn't have any issue taking Ja over him. It's a little crazy to say Ball, who I was likely the highest on this board predraft, due to his limitations. Ball could maybe be a 20 5 5 guy but these other guys have shown they could be. Also it's fair we are biased towards our guy. He's also outside of Ja maybe the most fun to watch.

[JMAC3]

I have LaMelo second, I’m not a huge fan of Fox though, he still can’t really shoot it very well from free throw and his three point shooting is erratic.

Ja

Lamelo

Trae
Fox
Shai

[LofJ]

Trae Young is one of the most overrated players in the NBA. LaMelo destroyed him the last time we played the Hawks, that won't be a one time occurrence.

[GiggitySmalls]

I'd like to see what we could do to get Drummond to pair with hayward,ball, and possibly rozier. Im all on board to trade Tae, monk, zeller, and 2nds.

This deal sucks for us especially considering he is a free agent this summer and will likely get overpaid. You want to trade three rotation players for a guy who hasn't proven to be a winning player on a team that is already lacking depth? I can't get behind that.

Obviously not all of that in one deal. I forgot he was a free agent this summer... at 27 almost 28 do we have what it takes financially to sign him?

[SWedd523]

I don't like Trae or his game AT ALL but you gotta be wild as **** to undervalue a guy who can get you 27/9/4 every night.

He's already established himself as a star around the league and will have 5-10 ASG appearances and probably a couple All-NBA appearances to go along with it. Scoring and shooting is way more valuable in the current NBA than just about anything else.

Among young lead guards, he's at the top by default until someone takes it away from him.

I don't really think you can confidently put Melo over Morant either.

They're both in the same-ish mold, Morant probably a better (more reliable) scorer and defender, and a significantly better athlete, while Melo is a much better rebounder and probably better (more creative) distributor. Morant, to me, projects to be impacted less by playoff defense than Melo.

Guys like SGA and Fox are more dangerous scorers/shooters than Melo, which is "probably" more valuable in the current NBA climate.

I think Melo probably has a higher overall ceiling from a pure production standpoint than most of the other young guards, but he'll probably require more pieces around him to reach that ceiling since it's more dependent upon the quality of his teammates.

i.e. you could put Young, Morant, SGA, Fox, etc on just about any team and their numbers won't change very much. If Melo gets a good team built around him then I can see him putting up dominant numbers for a long time. If they continue to field non-needle-movers like just about the entire roster not named Hayward, then his development (and numbers) will be hampered.


In an alternate universe where Klay's career wasn't destroyed by injuries and the Warriors drafted Melo, it would've been very fun to watch that trio play basketball.

[Braggins]

Trae Young is insanely skilled offensively, but I don't think his IQ has caught up to his skill level yet and hes an atrocious defender. LaMelo is either already ahead of him in terms of IQ, or will be soon imo, and he projects to be at least above average defensively. Hes also a way better rebounder.

I think he has the highest natural IQ of that group of young PGs and I think he and Shai have the highest defensive ceilings. I think Morant is the best prospect of the group right now, but I can see a path for LaMelo to be better than all of them.

[Chapelchilla]

I don't think I would trade Ball for any of them at this point.

[BigSlam]

Trae Young is insanely skilled offensively, but I don't think his IQ has caught up to his skill level yet and hes an atrocious defender. LaMelo is either already ahead of him in terms of IQ, or will be soon imo, and he projects to be at least above average defensively. Hes also a way better rebounder.

Agreed.

I cringe when I watch Young play. The super long range 3’s are kinda fun sometimes but his shot selection is atrocious IMO and like you said, his D terrible.

LaMelo is, and the very least, seen to give a massive amount of effort of both ends at all times - and is actually a pretty effective defender.

[HornetJail]

LaMelo's TS% is sitting at 54%

not bad for someone I was worried would be somewhere between Brandon Jennings and Ricky Rubio as a scorer

[Rich4114]

I think it's way too early to be doing the comparisons thing with Ball. I'd hold off on that until season 3 TBH.