Listen, it might not happen. LaMelo Ball currently leads the Eastern backcourt by a billion fan votes, giving him a substantial leg up in the race to be an All-Star starter. But that’s only half the accounting. He’ll have to do better than last year’s seventh-place voting among both media and players to snag himself a spot as a starter, or else his selection falls to the mercy of coaches who have historically valued winning.
But Ball undoubtedly is better than he was last year, or the year before, or even the year before that, when he did make the All-Star game as a reserve in just his second season. Health is a major reason; Ball played just 58 games in those two non-All-Star seasons, and he’s played half that many this year alone.
Is better enough? The progression isn’t linear; Ball has skipped into a whole new chart entirely, leaving behind the constraints of a two-dimensional line graph for a multi-dimensional view. That can confuse people, and confusion breeds distrust. He inspires a special dislike in people who consider themselves real basketball fans. They take the game Seriously and expect Ball to do the same.
You can understand where they’re coming from when you’ve watched Ball miss a one-legged three-pointer or commit another egregious foul. It can be a harrowing viewing experience. “Casual” fans love Ball for the highlights (again, he’s hundreds of thousands of votes ahead of the East’s second-leading guard!), but Serious basketball people look past the TikToks and get caught up in the loudness of his mistakes. Sure, he’s fourth in scoring with 29 points per game, but it takes him a whopping 24 field goal attempts to get there — nearly three more than second-place Tyrese Maxey. I’d argue there’s a third layer to Ball, and it’s far meatier than you might expect.
The Hornets are bereft of quality NBA players, particularly on the offensive end. A disturbing amount of their offense was lost when Grant Williams — Grant Williams! — suffered a season-ending injury. Do Serious fans really think that a fully realized Ball would take the Hornets anywhere further than they’ve gone? A little of what Ball is doing is silly; a lot is pushing the boundaries of conventional wisdom to find new avenues of success.
Trying something new has an immediate binary result but is usually an incremental process. At first, it will look stupid/cool if it fails/succeeds. But even bad art can be refined with time and practice into something useful, as long as the artist doesn’t lose the courage to fall flat publicly. (Remember when James Harden briefly dipped his toes into the one-legged three range? He was the forerunner but never entirely capitalized on his vision.)
Ball’s range is unlimited. He isn’t Steph Curry or Damian Lillard from the logo, but he’s capable and willing to launch from 35 feet at a moment’s notice (the right-to-left behind-the-back dribble is the tell). The floater game is angelic. But that’s old news; what’s new is a more assertive Ball drawing free throws and nailing and-ones at his highest rate since his rookie year when, don’t forget, he was surrounded by far more spacing and talent.
A horrendous Hornets team still scores at an above-median rate when Ball is on the floor. When he’s off, it’s the basketball apocalypse. Only Nikola Jokic, Curry, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander see their team’s offense decline by more in their absence (min. 500 minutes).
The three-point percentage leaves something to be desired, for sure. But Ball is finishing twos at a career-best rate and getting to the stripe. Add it all up, and he’s at an essentially average point per shot while putting up more attempts than anybody in the league. Could Ball bump that efficiency by pruning his worst shots? Probably. Does that take away from the reality of what he’s doing now? The law of conservation of matter states that matter can’t be created or destroyed; it can only change form. Physics can’t fully explain how Ball is concocting a pretty solid offense out of absolutely nothing.
Do I think Ball is one of the six best guards in the East? Not really. Am I convinced that any of his peers would be doing better in his situation? Not really, and they’d be a lot more boring in doing so. Here, the perceived lack of Seriousness is a virtue. If you’re going to fail — and all but the top MVP candidates would fail in this situation if success is solely measured by team wins — start the brickwork on the way forward. It may require a lot of bricks! But it’s better than being stuck in the mud forever.
Ball certainly could stand to pass more, but the dimes he does drop look like optical illusions. Nobody this side of Jokic is more creative, particularly in the open court. And guess what? Ball has a better-than-median turnover rate for point guards and is significantly more careful with the ball than guys like Trae Young or Cade Cunningham.
Ball’s defense is bad, but it’s far from the worst of fellow possible All-Star guards like Jalen Brunson, Damian Lillard, Tyler Herro, and Young. Even the fouling, a perennial bugaboo for Ball, has improved to an extent. After fouling out of a quartet of his first 15 games, he hasn’t committed more than four infractions since. Progress!
To be clear, Ball’s candidacy isn’t an open-and-shut case. Eastern guards are a tough field. If you personally can’t stomach Ball’s excesses, I disagree, but I understand. There are reasonable basketball reasons to select other players without tearing Ball down. Don’t use the hollow Seriousness excuse.
And if Ball does make it, as he seems poised to do, don’t yell at the kids on their phones voting for him on triple-vote-count days, either. His appearance will be perfectly well-deserved.