Last Monday, LaMelo Ball announced that he would be playing professional basketball in Australia’s National Basketball League. Although the league isn’t the standard route for basketball development, as the NCAA is, it is one of the better national leagues in the world in regards to developing young players.
LaMelo will be joining the league’s “Next Stars” program, which was also joined recently by RJ Hampton, who is the number five prospect in ESPN’s Top 100 for the 2019 class.
Matt Flinn, LaMelo’s future coach on the Illawarra Hawks, Matt Flinn, had this to say following the announcement via ESPN:
“The Illawarra Hawks have a long history of developing great young players, many of whom have gone into great things in Australia, Europe and the NBA, and the signing of LaMelo is testimony to that. Together we will work hard so he can achieve his ultimate goal.”
Obviously that ultimate goal is playing in America’s basketball league, the NBA. If you didn’t know that was LaMelo’s “ultimate goal”, then you definitely haven’t listened to LaVar Ball talk in the past few years.
LaMelo should have a good opportunity to continue honing his skills. Whatever you think about him not playing in the NCAA, the NBL is a far better alternative than him playing in Lithuania’s basketball league and is definitely comparable to the NBA’s G-League. The NBL is a legit, professional league, and even if LaMelo doesn’t improve his basketball skills, his personal skills should improve as he will be in a professional environment.
We’ll see if he obtains his goal of making the NBA when he’s eligible in 2020 for the draft. ESPN currently has him behind his fellow NBL star RJ Hampton in their 2019 Top 100, at number 21. That doesn’t mean his draft stock isn’t decently high, as Sports Illustrated recently had him going number 27 overall in a mock draft.
