LaMelo Ball’s jumper has been the biggest talking point of his brief career. Much like oldest brother Lonzo, LaMelo’s unorthodox form has been the subject of much criticism. Unlike Lonzo, the numbers have not been as kind to LaMelo.
While Lonzo shot 41.2% from three in his lone season at UCLA, LaMelo 25.0% from range in his lone half-season with Illawarra in the National Basketball League (NBL). LaMelo showed flashes at times, including going 40% from range in a five-game stretch on seven attempts per game, but he was more often a low-percentage shooter from deep.
The interesting aspect of his outside shot was that it changed from a natural jump shot to more of a set shot. But it wasn’t a motion he repeated often and, thus, led to varied results.
With that in mind, in a recent piece by Olgun Uluc for Fox Sports Australia, an Eastern Conference NBA executive noted that Ball had to make changes to his jumper.
“The priority during pre-draft workouts has to be the jumper,” a different Eastern Conference executive told foxsports.com.au. “It hasn’t been good. He needs to re-jig the form before he starts working out with teams, if he does any workouts at all. If he can make teams feel more comfortable about that, then he’d be in a great spot.”
The benefit of Ball’s NBL season ending in mid-February is that he’ll have multiple weeks and months to work on his game before ever taking part in a workout for teams in the draft lottery. If Ball doesn’t intend on working on his jump shot prior to the NBA Draft, it’ll likely hurt his draft stock while also serving as one of the first things the team that drafts him addresses.
The changes to Lonzo’s jump shot have paid huge dividends this season with the Pelicans as he’s shooting a career-high 35.2% from three and 38% over his last 13 games. The quicker LaMelo can address some of the issues in his jump shot, the quicker he can become a consistent and effective shooter at the next level.
