The playoffs are officially out of reach for the Charlotte Hornets, marking the ninth consecutive year the squad will miss the festivities. It's also worth noting that they have advanced to the playoffs just thrice in the past 20 years.
The franchise's futility in finding a superstar to lead the team might be a key reason it has yet to experience sustained success. The best the Hornets have acquired and developed in the previous two decades is arguably Kemba Walker.
Interestingly, they have a potential superstar in the making today in LaMelo Ball. Some people might laugh at that notion. However, the 2020 No. 3 pick certainly has the talent and bravado to become one of the league's best players. It might sound far-fetched, but he can even be one of the new faces of the NBA one day.
Hornets might have to look at LaMelo Ball differently
Unfortunately, Ball's career progress hasn't been at par with those of some of his peers. Of course, injuries are partly to blame, but even when healthy, he has never been able to sustain his spectacular play.
Take his past several weeks, for example. LaMelo hasn't shot well, sinking just 35.3 percent of his shots in February and March and igniting further the assertion that he is an inefficient shot chucker. It's such a sharp contrast to when Ball was considered one of the league's better shot-makers statistically earlier in the season. Couple that with the judgment that he is a net-negative defender; there are just some pundits who can't take him seriously, such as ESPN's Brian Windhorst and Tim MacMahon.
Maybe it's time, though, to look at Ball from a different lens. It's unclear how the Hornets view their cornerstone. However, treating him as the franchise savior might be the wrong way to go at it. Sure, he has not-yet-fully-realized skills as an elite go-to scorer. However, he has exhibited that he can be at his best when surrounded by, if not another star, at least reliable shooters and effective secondary shot-creators. That way, the floor general's playmaking abilities can be on full display, as has occasionally been the case this season.
This isn't any knock at all on Ball. It's just time to admit that trying to use him like James Harden isn't the best way to maximize the 2021 Rookie of the Year. He leads the NBA this season in usage rate with 36.0 percent, with Giannis Antetokounmpo just a step behind him.
While it's easy to blame the front office for how it assembled the roster, it didn't expect the team to be ravaged by injuries this badly. Hopefully, though, it has realized or learned its lesson on how to construct the squad around Ball.