LaMelo Ball’s season in the NBL has been a rocky one that has had highs and lows both personally for Ball and for the Illawarra Hawks as a whole. A rough start was made even worse with a season-ending injury to the team’s best player, Aaron Brooks, leaving Illawarra in a state of uncertainty.
Ball has taken the reigns and flourished in the weeks since Brooks’ absence, highlighted by his best game of the season in the most recent Illawarra contest against the Taipans.
With a healthy sample size gathered through the opening nine games of the season for the Hawks, here’s a look at three key stats from the season for both Illawarra and Ball.
A slow start from three is now over
Ball’s shooting struggles to start the year were highlighted by his abysmal three-point percentage. Through the opening six games, Ball shot a staggeringly low 15.6 percent (5-of-32) from beyond the arc. In the three games since then, he’s shot a much more respectable 36 percent (9-of-25) including going 5-of-11 in his 24-point performance.
Given his career as a solid three-point shooter, it’s likely that Ball’s start to the year was simply a shooting slump that was rather poorly timed. While it’s a small sample size this season either way, Ball has shown flashes in recent weeks that he’s set to break out of his shooting slump which only spells good things for the Hawks moving forward.
Setting the table for teammates
Ball has long shed his label as a ballhogging, shot-chucking youngster but now he has the stats and footage on an international stage to back it up. Ball’s raw assist numbers are great as he’s averaging 5.8 assists per game, the second-highest mark in the league this season behind Scott Machado’s 7.2 assists.
The advanced stats back him up even more. His 32.2 percent assist percentage is third in the league behind Machado and John Roberson. RealGM’s Hands on Buckets stat, which is the number of baskets a player is directly involved in whether as the scorer or passer where the formula is field goals plus assists divided by team field goals, sees Ball with the fifth-highest mark in the league at 35.9 percent.
Ball has a ton of responsibilities on the court especially in the wake of Brook’s injury and has produced at a high level.
Taking cookies and avoiding turnovers
High usage rates and assist percentages typically go along with high turnover rates and lower steal percentages, particularly the former. That is not the case, impressively, for Ball.
First, he has a surprisingly high steal percentage on the year at 3.1 percent, the sixth-best mark in the league. He still struggles defensively but has many of the same instincts that make Lonzo Ball effective defensively.
On the other end, his turnover percentage of 12.6 percent is respectable particularly considering how much the ball is in his hands. Of the top ten in assist percentage this season, that 12.6 percent figure is tied for third-lowest.
While Ball’s shooting has been largely inefficient, every other aspect of his game has been very efficient this season.
