Charlotte Hornets: Grading LaMelo Ball’s First Career Preseason

 Presence, Vision, and Awareness on the Court

When coaches and scouts talk about a player’s intangibles, these three attributes are what they are talking about, and from what LaMelo showed us in the preseason, he has them! These are the little things that make a player stand out.

Part of what makes LaMelo so good in this department is that he makes it look so effortless. He knows where his teammates are at all times, even if they’re not in his direct line of vision. It’s almost as if he has a sixth sense about where his teammates are at on the court at all times. This is part of what makes him a great point guard.

His court presence was what really surprised me. It’s not very often that a rookie demands the attention of the other team, but in his four preseason games, that’s exactly what was happening. He started to get comfortable with his teammates, which in turn allowed him to build chemistry with his teammates.

LaMelo Ball is a towering figure at point guard, standing at 6’8″. This, along with his court vision, his awareness, and his overall confidence in himself make a recipe for disaster for other teams trying to prepare to play him.

It would not be right to grade LaMelo without objectivity, so we must point out some not-so-great things about this part of his game. In his first game especially, he seemed to be a little lost. This is can be expected from a rookie who is playing in their first-ever NBA game, so you can’t be too hard on him for that.

He bounced back pretty quickly about halfway through the second preseason game in this area, but he has to make sure that he continues to eliminate this from his game. It won’t take long for other players with more experience to expose this. While this will happen from time to time, he must not make a habit of it.

Letter Grade: B+