LaMelo Ball’s broken right wrist is a bummer for a lot of reasons.
It prematurely ends what was shaping up as one of the greatest and most entertaining rookie seasons in Charlotte pro sports history.
It takes away what LaMelo loves most — playing ball.
It negatively affects the Charlotte Hornets’ playoff chances (although it doesn’t erase them entirely).
And it means that hardly any Hornets fans will get to see the Melo Show in person this season. The team only began selling tickets again to the general public March 13, with a COVID-limited crowd of 3,000.
Only a week later, on Saturday night in Los Angeles, Ball broke his wrist on a drive against the L.A. Clippers while trying to brace himself on a fall. The Hornets have only announced that he’s out for an “extended period of time,” but all indications are that he will miss the rest of the season.
What that broken wrist shouldn’t mean is that LaMelo Ball misses out on being named the NBA’s Rookie of the Year — an honor he once seemed destined to win in a landslide, and one he absolutely still should win.
I know there will be people who doubt that statement. Ball played in the Hornets’ first 41 games but now will likely miss the last 31 in this truncated 72-game season. So that means, barring a minor medical miracle, he will miss 43% of his first NBA year.
Is playing 57% of the season really enough to win an award that encapsulates an entire year?
In this case, yes.
Ball was completely dominating the other rookies in the 2020 draft class until this injury. He went into the NBA All-Star break ranked first among all rookies in points, rebounds, assists and steals.
That’s astounding. Ball was the only rookie over the past 60 years to lead all four of those categories midway through his first year. Put another way, Ball (the No. 3 overall pick) was outrebounding James Wiseman (the No. 2 pick) and outscoring Anthony Edwards (No. 1) at the time.
Ball will end his season averaging 16 points, 5.9 rebounds, 6.1 assists and 1.6 steals per game. He won back-to-back Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month awards in January and February.
I was in attendance the night Ball had his first triple-double in January, when coach James Borrego said afterward: “A 19-year-old rookie does not look like this.”
This 19-year-old did, though, which makes this wrist injury such a shame.
Don’t call it a disaster, though — let’s keep it in perspective. More than 542,000 Americans have lost their lives due to COVID-19 in the past year. That’s a disaster.
This? This is just a sports injury.
And by next season, Ball will have healed up and this broken wrist will be a distant memory, much like Steph Curry’s once-broken hand seems like old news now. Ball may even get better with his left hand in the interim, which would make him even more dangerous on the fast break.
As for the Hornets themselves, they still have a decent shot at making the “play-in” component of the Eastern Conference playoffs. That would mean finishing somewhere between 7 and 10 in the East standings.
Even without Ball, this team still has Gordon Hayward and Terry Rozier, their other two best players. Devonte Graham will be an adequate point guard, moving back into a starting role. Malik Monk and Miles Bridges are capable reserves. The hole in the middle remains prominent, and general manager Mitch Kupchak should try to fix it soon. And Ball’s 70-foot transition passes will no longer be there to dazzle us.
Still, as Borrego said Monday afternoon: “We’ve got plenty in-house to get this done.” The coach said he had had his “pity party” already on Sunday after hearing the injury prognosis. He said that he felt “horrible” for Ball, but that the Hornets themselves needed to show resilience to get through this setback.
Although we might think Ball winning Rookie of the Year is a sure thing in the Carolinas, it won’t be. Some media members will undoubtedly hold Ball’s injury against him when it’s time to vote in mid-May.
Steve Aschburner, a writer for NBA.com, noted Monday that the lowest percentage of games played for a winner of the ROY award was Patrick Ewing for the 1985-86 New York Knicks, who played in 60.9% of his team’s games that season. Assuming the wrist injury is season-ending — and Ball was getting a second opinion about that — Ball will play in only 56.9% of the Hornets’ contests.
In the absence of another rookie scoring 25 points every night and leading his team to the playoffs, though, this year that should be more than enough. Sacramento’s Tyrese Haliburton, Edwards and Wiseman are all worthy contenders. Edwards, in fact, is now favored by many oddsmakers over Ball to win ROY.
But only Ball, in 41 games, has been truly remarkable. He’s so valuable long-term to the Charlotte franchise that the Hornets shouldn’t even think about bringing him back this season, even if he tries to talk them into it like Alonzo Mourning once did early in his career in Charlotte.
“He’s going to come back bigger, stronger and faster,” Borrego said of Ball. “There’s no doubt about that.”
At season’s end, Ball should be the NBA’s Rookie of the Year.
And then in 2021-22, at the ripe old age of 20, he will be even better.
