Hornets’ biggest LaMelo Ball question still isn’t going to be answered this season

The "winning player" label has evaded the Hornets star for years, and that is (mostly) not his fault.
Atlanta Hawks v Charlotte Hornets
Atlanta Hawks v Charlotte Hornets | Jacob Kupferman/GettyImages

What does it mean to be a winning player in the NBA? Does one ring vindicate a player? Does a career with multiple Finals losses deserve a "winning player" label more than a career filled with first-round exits and then one magical run? Is there any way to actually measure the value of a player's wins?

I don't know the answer to most of those questions. But I do know that the labeling of LaMelo Ball as a non-winning player five years into his career is wholly unfair... and it's not likely to go away in 2025-26, as the Hornets improved — but still inadequate — roster is likely to end up, once again, on the outside looking in to contention in the Eastern Conference. Questions will remain about Ball's ability to lead a team. Those questions won't make any sense, considering Ball has been surrounded with rosters that no player would succeed with, but they will surely continue being asked.

Ball is one of the most polarizing talents in the league; his game is completely unique, always thrilling and sometimes impulsive to a fault. His propensity for trying to do everything can result in spectacular individual performances... or games where it looked like he was sabotaging the Hornets from the inside.

The most common area in which Ball gets criticized, the reason he's labeled as a reckless, non-winning player, is that his efficiency does not match his volume. Ball attempted 24.0 shots per 36 minutes in 2024-25, which was more than... everybody else. By an entire shot. His 40.5 percent field goal percentage and 53.6 percent true shooting clip make it tough, on the surface, to justify that chucking.

But that's the thing; Ball's unprecedented volume stems from the fact that he's essentially never been given anything close to a competitive NBA roster around him. Of course he tries to do everything! No one else can do anything! And the one time he did have a reliable supporting cast, those questions... weren't even questions. And those questions will dissipate quickly once again, as soon as the Hornets' front office fields another talented NBA roster.

LaMelo Ball has never had a chance to be a winning player

There has been exactly one year in LaMelo Ball's career in which the Hornets, in earnest, tried to win basketball games. It was 2021-22, Ball's second year in the league. At 20 years old, he made an All-Star team and led the Hornets to the fourth-best offensive rating in the NBA.

An unceremonious exit in the play-in obviously doesn't answer all questions about the viability of a player as the first option on a team. But it was a clear first step in Ball's development as the leader of this franchise, and then everything fell apart. James Borrego was fired (which remains one of the most laughably incompetent moves in recent NBA front office history) and the team entered a quasi-rebuild that it remains in today. Essentially, Ball was never given the chance to prove that he could be a winner.

Hornets roster looks a lot better, but it's still not ready to compete

I loved pretty much all of the Hornets' offseason moves. Kon Knueppel, Liam McNeeley and Ryan Kalkbrenner were all solid picks in my eyes, taking on Collin Sexton and Pat Connaughton could both pay off immediately and a healthy Brandon Miller should continue his trajectory toward two-way wing star in the lineage of his GOAT, Paul George.

But a better roster still isn't enough to prove, one way or the other, whether Ball is a winning player or not. A potentially bright future for all three of those draft picks is not enough of a foundation to judge Ball, the team's presumed leader, on. No 23 year-old would win with the rosters he's had in the past, and it's unfair to ask him to lead this marginally improved roster to anything more than a play-in game, either.

Maybe everyone is right about LaMelo Ball. Maybe he's more flash than substance and his hyper-improvised play style isn't conducive to winning in the postseason. If that becomes obvious, I'll put my hand up and admit my wrongs. But the five years Ball has played in the NBA have done pretty much nothing to convince me that he can't win at a high level; being drafted to the Charlotte Hornets did him no favors in the matter, and the lack of talent surrounding him his entire career has made it impossible to get off the launching pad.

Ball needs to stay on the court to prove that his label is unfair

Playing 102 games in three years makes it tough to form any opinion on a player, and I understand that. If anything will derail Ball as a winning player, it's his inability to actually play. Ball needs a healthy 2025-26 season pretty badly to get his reputation back on track. Without one, it will get harder still to claim that he's getting an unfair rep; the tag of "injury-prone," unfortunately, has been accurate in his NBA career so far.

Maybe I'm delusional. This is, to be fair, the third straight offseason I've tried to tell everyone that LaMelo Ball is still as good as we thought he was after the 2021-22 season. But I won't give up on a 23 year-old who's already made an All-Star game and has career splits of 21/7/6. You can't make me!