I dont want to like LaMelo Ball, but I do!
You have to understand, my duality comes from a place of true frustration. At times I don’t like Lamello, I find he is inconsistent, does not take his craft seriously and does not purport himself like the face of an NBA franchise; but my goodness is he a joy to watch. His audacity, his joy, his care-free style of play are all things to admire but that does not tell the full story: His court vision is incredible, he throws kick ahead passes that would bely a ‘ball-hog’ status, he seems genuinely happy when his teammates succeed and in turn his teammate all rave about him.
This is all to say, I am a recovering (and still hanging onto) LaMelo Ball fantasy league keeper. This is where the duality comes in: when he plays he’s incredible, with career averages of 20.8/7.4/5.8 splits while making 3.1 3PFG per game and on any given night its not out of the question to see a final game stat sheet of 32 points, 12 assists, 9 rebs, 3 steals 5 3P FGM. BUT he’s also averaged only 46 games per season! That’s 56% of games played! Imagine week after week, losing and seeing your borderline best fantasy player on the ‘INJ’ list for the 3rd consecutive week. Then he comes back for 3-4 games and puts up lets say averages of 28/9/7 and you’re like ‘wow finally we’re back!’ and then he’s ‘GTD’, oh god here comes ‘O’ then yes put me out of my misery another ‘INJ’.
Fantasy leagues are an unforgiving brand of basketball fandom and players like this are not out of the norm. Anyone reading this is getting PTSD flashbacks of Baron David or Blake Griffin or Anthony Davis or Joel Embiid. But what is so confusing about LaMelo is that when he does play, the counting stats aren’t just there, but I would argue he meaningfully improves the quality of play and there are whiskers, even dandruffs of what you could call a winning basketball player and the top player (maybe 2nd best player) on a contending team.
Take Charlottes win totals since Lamelo was drafted in 2020; 33 (COVID season, on pace for 38 wins) – 43 – 27 – 21 – 19 – and this season currently 22-28 (on pace for 36 wins and currently tied with the Knicks for NBA’s hottest team with 6 wins in a row as of Feb 2nd 2026). Now its clearly the 43 wins that “jump” out and you guessed it, the only year LaMelo played > 51 games (he played 72 that year).
Now I gotta go back to my fantasy team for a minute, going backwards in the last 4 years I’ve done – Finals, Final, Finals, Championship and you guessed it, the 2021-22 season which I won was the last time LaMelo actually finished an NBA season, meaning he was on my team starting and I won! Huhhhhh…
Heres a crazy stat, in the history of the NBA there have only been 3 players to average 20+PPG, 7+APG, 5+RPG & >= 36% 3FG% for their careers and those players are Nikola Jokic, James Harden and LaMelo Ball. Is that not crazy? Two first ballet HOFers and LaMelo Ball. If you take out the 3 point percentage, the list ‘balloons’ to 8 players with 6 being future or current first ballet HOFers (Jokic, Harden, Doncic, James, Oscar, Westbrook) and Cade Cunningham. Now anyone can create any filter to encompass anything but these are just LaMelo’s career averages, so there is generational greatness in there, its just, does he want to do the work it takes to get there (more on this at the end).
More to that point, the 25-26 season to this point has been relatively injure-free and that’s really stretching the credulity of the word relative. And to that point, the Charlotte Hornets are +12.7 per 100 when he’s on the floor pushing their offensive rating to 124.4 which would be #1 in the NBA and their expected wins goes from 29 to 60. Their defense goes down by -0.1 per 100 which is nothing and that tracks when you watch him play aswell, somehow Charles Lee has found a way to make LaMelo buy into 1) playing less and 2) playing defense harder. Since returning from injury on Dec 14th 2025, he’s playing 26.4 MPG down from his career average of 31.2 MPG and for your franchise player to be playing alittle of half the game is close to unprecedented in NBA history. Charlotte is correctly managing his minutes because he’s an injury risk and there can be diminishing returns to the LaMelo Ball experience. For all the flashy 3s, blow by speed and deft passing, there just as many erratic turnovers, early clock 30ft jumpers and James Harden-esque defensive lapses. However this year, especially since returning from injury, his defensive energy has been everything you would want to it to be and this creates so many new oppurtinities for a coaching staff. Now LaMelo can’t be hunted on defense when teams knew he wasn’t keen to playing it, now they have a 5 man crew of LaMelo, Miller, Kon, Diabate & Bridges that are tall, long, strong and can switch all over the place without a clear weakness other than clear NBA Centre size.
Charlotte is currently 11th in the East and trending up quickly, imagine a first round of Charlotte-Detroit or Charlotte-NY? How poetic would be it for all the backsteps New York has had this season to be pushed to the brink by an upstart Charlotte team? Charlotte currently has a point differential of +1.04, good for 6th in the East and better than the current 30-21 4th place Toronto Raptors, which means they are playing at a home court in the East NBA playoffs pace. For all the highs and lows LaMelo has given us in his career, could this finally be the season where he shows out in the playoffs and stakes his claim as a top 15 NBA player which would match his talent. Time will tell…
