Charlotte Hornets: Breakdown of LaMelo Ball’s start to his Hornets career

LaMelo Ball’s current play

To start with a positive, a trait of LaMelo’s game that has translated instantly to the NBA is his court vision in transition. Melo is constantly scanning the court to find the teammate in the best position to attack, with or without the ball. This manifests on this mindboggling tip rebound to Miles Bridges.

Over Melo’s first 3 weeks as an NBA player, he’s shown the ability to see all kinds of openings in transition. This skill amplifies a Charlotte Hornets team full of athletic players who run the floor well, such as Miles Bridges, Cody Zeller, Malik Monk, and Jalen McDaniels; and most of all a team that desperately needs to play faster to open up its offense(ranked 30th in the league for pace in 2019/20).

Whilst not all of the below plays turned into buckets, the rest of the Hornets roster will learn to be prepared for these Melo dimes; and therefore, Melo’s vision in transition is going to open up tonnes of buckets for the Hornets across the whole season.

My favorite passes in the above clip were the early hit-ahead to Miles, Biz, and Cody when they ran the floor and got a good post position. The early shot clock post seal is currently one of the most untapped plays in the NBA IMHO; so Melo being so conscious of that avenue and constantly rewarding big men for running the floor is music to my ears.

Obviously, LaMelo can’t only play in transition, and like with his older brother Lonzo he struggles in the half-court.

Spread pick and roll projects to be a major part of LaMelo’s game moving forward due to LaMelo’s impressive passing ability. It was one of his most impressive skills as an NBL player, hitting timely cross-court passes and high-difficulty interior passes like it was nothing.

And so far Charlotte Hornets coach James Borrego seems ready to give LaMelo substantial opportunity to run spread PnR actions in his rookie year.

The first hindrance to this plan is LaMelo’s shooting woes. LaMelo’s shot looks at its best as a set shot off the catch; in these instances, there’s a semblance of consistent mechanics and footwork, even though there’s still the trademark right elbow flare as well as other minor mechanical issues.

However, once you mix in some dribbling moves and movement, the footwork goes all out of whack. To run the spread PnR effectively, you need to be able to hit pull-up shots when teams go under ball-screens; and unfortunately, Melo isn’t hitting these shots consistently. Melo sometimes rushes and speeds up his mechanics in off-the-dribble jumpers; sometimes he has a leg kick, sometimes he swings his right leg over, and other times the footwork looks just like his above catch and shoot looks. Overall, his mechanics and footwork on pull-ups and movement shots are inconsistent.

Therefore, many of Ball’s PnR possessions go nowhere and grind the Charlotte Hornets half-court offense to a halt.

Melo’s NBL shooting stats reflected these major footwork and mechanics differences between his jumpers off the catch and jumpers off the dribble; according to Spencer Pearlman’s scouting report of Ball for The Stepien, Melo shot 11/29 on C&S 3s in the NBL but 11/43 off the dribble; though keep in mind the small sample size.

And so far in the NBA regular season, he is shooting 58.3% on C&S 3s and 33.3% on pull-up 3s. Based on the lingering mechanic’s issues and inconsistent footwork in the above clips, I’d expect both of those numbers to regress as the season progresses.

That’s far from the only thing holding Melo back as a pick-and-roll ballhandler; currently, Melo runs into problems even when teams go over screens.

LaMelo currently has a tendency to pick up his dribble far too early; and this is not some unskilled ballhandler who has no choice to pick it up against digs to prevent being stripped (PJ Washington, Miles Bridges, and Cody Martin are currently struggling in this aspect). Melo’s ballhandling is outstanding; it’s tight and he has a real shake to his moves, and theoretically should be able to keep it alive under pressure. But even WITHOUT pressure Melo is constantly picking up his dribble far too early which hurts his chances of scoring.

Another contributor to Melo’s halfcourt struggles so far is a simple lack of athleticism. Melo just struggles to cover ground moving north-south.

These two factors combined mean Melo is currently struggling to put pressure on the defense. This constantly leads to Melo settling for floaters off the pick and roll, or just generally not making high-value passes in the halfcourt.

Therefore, a change LaMelo must make in order to establish true scoring gravity and draw more defenders and amplify the effects of his court vision is taking an extra dribble in the above spots.

Contrary to what Borrego said, there is MUCH to teach Melo as a pick-and-roll and general halfcourt decision-maker. That said, whilst Melo will have numerous unsightly plays in his rookie season, Charlotte Hornets fans need to realize this is part of the process.