LaMelo Ball will miss the rest of the NBA season. The Charlotte point guard was injured in a no-contact game against Detroit, feeling pain and falling to the floor after the crossover.
Ball leads the Hornets in points per game (23.4) and assists (8.5) and makes 3.9 three-pointers per game.
The Hornets are not playing for results this season, with the club in the top four contenders for the highest chance of a first pick in the draft. Charlotte isn’t as diligent as San Antonio, Houston, or Detroit when it comes to dumping matches, but it’s definitely in the top 5 worst teams. LaMelo’s presence on the court only hindered the Hornets, who had won five straight victories in late February (albeit after seven consecutive losses). Therefore, Ball’s prospects for returning to the court were cut down due to uselessness. Perhaps the injury is not so serious, but it makes no sense to force the return to the club.
True, the history of Lamelo’s injuries is really annoying. In the 2022/23 season, he missed 13 matches due to an ankle injury. Three matches later, he twisted his ankle again and was out for another 11 matches. In total, for three seasons, he has 162 meetings on his account – in March-April 2021, he watched the games from the bench due to a wrist injury.
Most NBA injuries involve an element of chance. In the preseason, LaMelo twisted his ankle after stepping on the foot of a Washington player. Against Indiana, LaMelo managed to get injured by stepping on the foot of a fan sitting at the touchline. In a game with Houston, Lamelo fell / stepped on his ankle right on the ankle , teammate PJ Washington.
But a repeated accident cannot but begin to seem like a pattern.
Lamelo’s injury is unfortunately stacked on that of his brother Lonzo, who is likely to miss the entire 2022/23 season with knee problems. For five seasons in the NBA, Lonzo took part in 252 games, missing more than 158 meetings. If you add to the last figure 82 games of the current regular season, it turns out that Lonzo missed almost as much as he played. Since 2017, he has experienced knee and ankle problems, and has also been absent due to hip and shoulder injuries. Lamelo has a similar story – he is knocked out of the rhythm of the game by injuries to his ankles, hips and shoulders.
To complete the picture, you can see how the third brother, Liangelo Ball, is doing there. He also started playing basketball at the age of four and by the age of six he was already playing with might and main against older opponents. He bypassed varsity basketball because he was arrested in China for trying to steal sunglasses. After that, he played with Lamelo in Lithuania and as part of his father’s Los Angeles team, after which he got into the Hornets farm club in the G-League. And you know what? Right now, Langelo… is recovering from an ankle injury that has kept him out of the court since December.
It turns out that right now, all three Ball brothers are injured. Perhaps it’s just a coincidence.
But it can also be assumed that forced athletic maturation and early specialization played a cruel joke on the Ball brothers.
They were born into a family of basketball players and took the ball in their hands at a super early age (Lonzo is generally credited with playing basketball from the age of two), plus they played in the AAU system under the guidance of their father, so they probably hardly left the court. Due to his signature shoe brand, Lamelo did not play at the university, playing in Lithuania, Australia and his father’s league, where he triple-doubled 40 points and threw 40 shots per game. Performances in Lithuania, by the way, ended after Lavar criticized the team’s coach for not keeping Lamelo on the court enough.
Due to the peculiarities of upbringing, Lonzo and Lamelo are thrown from a distance with a crooked technique. On the one hand, think about it. So what? Lonzo reworked the mechanics and came out on 37% of hits from long range, Lamelo, even with his two-handed push and elbow sticking out to the side, makes 37-38% of three-pointers in the last two seasons. On the other hand, it’s not just about bad habits that you have to work on. There are also more gloomy prospects associated with the deterioration of the body by the age of 25 – after all, by this age, Lonzo and Lamelo will live basketball without pauses for more than 20 years.
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