On Thursday, the Illawarra Hawks and the New Zealand Breakers faced off for an NBL regular season match up, pinning two of the presumed top-10 prospects in the 2020 NBA Draft: LaMelo Ball and RJ Hampton.
The game got out of hand fairly quickly in favor of Hampton’s Breakers, but the game still drew quite the crowd. In fact, according to the Newcastle Herald, nearly two million viewers tuned in to watch Ball and Hampton go head-to-head for the first time:
According to figures released by the NBL the match attracted 1.9 million views, surpassing the one million views for Ball’s first game for Illawarra against Brisbane on October 6.
Again, it didn’t end up being much of a game, but there was genuine interest in the two 18-year-old, American-born players on an international scale and the same should hold true leading up to the 2020 NBA Draft.
Ball is projected to go No. 3 overall according to ESPN, while Hampton is slotted to go with the No. 6 pick.
