After what was a unique NBA draft, as it was obviously all online, who is most likely to succeed in the NBA and who is set to win ROTY? By far the most well-known player in this draft class is LaMelo Ball, brother of Pelican’s guard Lonzo Ball. Although he was selected one spot behind his brother, I believe his potential is much greater and I believe he’ll win ROTY.
LaMelo does play the point like his brother Lonzo but he’s even taller than he is, standing at 6’8. This makes him the second tallest point guard in the NBA, only behind Ben Simmons. Even though he’s not as good at passing as his brother, he’s better than him in other ways. I would say he’s a better ball handler and for his size, I’m surprised he’s as quick as he is. I’ve seen many ankle breakers from LaMelo in his High School days, then overseas and then in his Dad’s league, the Junior Basketball Association, so I hope we see more in the NBA. With him being drafted to the Hornets, they’re obviously not the best team in the league so he should get a lot of playing time this season. They do have Terry Rozier though, who I think is a very underrated point guard, so I think they’ll play Rozier off the ball and LaMelo at the point.
An area where LaMelo is no match for Lonzo is defense but Lamelo isn’t a bad defender. If you look at old videos from 3 or 4 years ago when LaMelo was first in the spotlight, his defense was terrible and he didn’t put much effort in. As well, you would often catch him cherry-picking with him sometimes not even making the effort to get back on defense. But from what I’ve seen recently, he’s changed a lot. He makes a conscientious effort to have his knees bent when guarding his man and to stay in front of him. With LaMelo being so tall, he’ll always have a hard time keeping up with shorter guards, but when he’s guarding players that are a similar height, he can really hold his own. He will need to get a bit more muscular now that he’s in the NBA but most players are quite slender when they enter the league so this is no concern to me.
Where Lamelo excels though, is his shooting. He has a pretty good mid-range shot and his 3 is decent. Something I like is that he’s recently altered his shooting form a bit, as his old form was quite inconsistent. He used to release the ball very far on the left side of his body which caused his elbow to flare out, making his shot less accurate. But from what I’ve seen recently, his right leg doesn’t swing out as much as it used to and he releases the ball much more centrally. His elbow and wrist now sit further under the ball when he releases his shot so he should start shooting more consistently.
So I think LaMelo is a real contender for Rookie Of The Year this year and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Hornet’s are exciting to watch with the new duo of him and Gordon Hayward. We’ll just have to wait and see though.
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