LaMelo Ball’s NBA debut puts him in unwanted class of top draft picks

LaMelo Ball may have taken the basketball world by storm during NBA pre-season games, but once the real action began he was exposed.

LaMelo Ball’s debut wasn’t great.

LaMelo Ball was the talk of the NBA world during pre-season action.

The number three draft pick was exhilarating, his flashy passes vaulted him into discussions of being one of the best passers in the game and some fans had him inked into their must watch players lists.

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But on Thursday, when the real action kicked off for the Charlotte Hornets, Ball was being talked about for all the wrong reasons.

Up against the Cleveland Cavaliers, the team who finished last on the Eastern Conference standings last year with the second worst record in the league, the Hornets were brushed aside.

Ball wasn’t in the starting line-up, instead he came off the bench and played a grand total of 16 minutes while finishing with a dire stat line that read: 0 points, 1 rebound, 3 assists, 3 turnovers and 2 steals. He went 0-5 from the field which included missing all three attempts from beyond the arc.

His lacklustre NBA debut was made all the more embarrassing by one play in particular. With a little under five minutes to play in the third, LaMelo received the inbound pass before dribble past halfcourt only to stumble over his own feet and lose the ball.

He quickly hustled and got the ball back, only to slowly make his way toward the basket and completely forget about his defender behind him who stripped the ball away.

The play was so bad the Hornets youngster ended up being called out by Shaquille O’Neal and landing on the dreaded ‘Shaqtin a Fool’ list.

You never forget your first #Shaqtin moment, LaMelo 😂 pic.twitter.com/UdIecZFxBW

— Shaqtin' a Fool (@shaqtin) December 24, 2020

The scoreless debut also puts Ball into rarified air, seeing him join Otto Porter Jr., Hasheem Thabeet and Greg Oden as top three draft picks to not score in their debut game.

Making matters worse for Ball came during his post-game interview with reporters over Zoom when his call was hacked not once, but twice.

The Associated Press’ Tom Withers wrote: “Bizarre postgame last night as LaMelo Ball‘s Zoom call got hacked, twice. There was music, dancing, what sounded like someone speaking Japanese. Felt like I was in a Fellini film or something.”

LaMelo Ball is the first Top-3 pick to score 0 points in his NBA debut since Otto Porter Jr. (2013).

The only other Top-3 picks to be held scoreless in their NBA debut over the last 15 seasons are Hasheem Thabeet (2009) and Greg Oden (2008).

h/t @EliasSports pic.twitter.com/PuOKTnu8No

— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) December 24, 2020

Hornets teammate Gordon Hayward passed on some advice to Ball after the game to forget.

“I told him just to forget this one,” Hayward said per the Charlotte Observer. “Some days are diamonds, some days are stones.”

What makes Ball’s debut worse is the fact the guards in front of him for the Hornets erupted with Terry Rozier dropping a career-high 42 points while Devonte Graham finished with 10 points and 10 assists.

“LaMelo is not really known as a scorer, he’s known for play making. I don’t know how much play making with Graham playing the way he did and Rozier playing the way he does,” Fox’s Shannon Sharpe said on Undisputed.

“It’s the first game maybe he was anxious. It’s one game, but I’m going to need to see something moving forward, I can’t see a whole lot more zero point games and sit here and say it’s all good.”

Skip Bayless echoed Sharpe’s comments and said the youngster looked out of his depth during his debut.

“LaMelo doesn’t start and as you point out he plays a grand total of 16 minutes and while he was on the floor he looked lost to me. There were a lot of standing in the corner plays, where he’s like watching Terry Rozier,” Bayless said.

“They were playing him with Rozier and Devonte Graham and three guards. Well how much touch is he going to get? He’s got to be the orchestrator of the offense for his own offense and for the rest of the guys’ offense.

“I am the biggest Michael Jordan fan on the planet, but when it comes to running the franchise I am the least of the fans because this is horrendous what keeps happening here.”

Ball will get a chance to redeem himself when the Hornets take the court on Sunday in a contest against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Originally published as LaMelo Ball’s NBA debut puts him in unwanted class of top draft picks