LaMelo Ball 2020-2021 Outlook

[ILuvABGs 45]

7 hours ago, My Dinner With Andre said:

 

 

Man. This kid is a star. There's an aura of excitement brewing around this team, you can just feel it. They nailed the pick. Neither Terry or Devonte struck me as good playmakers when I watched them play last season. I know Devonte racked up assists but his style of play didn't seem to benefit Bridges or Washington. Melo will bring them all up.

[DonutGiveUp 1,946]

14 minutes ago, ILuvABGs said:

Man. This kid is a star. There's an aura of excitement brewing around this team, you can just feel it. They nailed the pick. Neither Terry or Devonte struck me as good playmakers when I watched them play last season. I know Devonte racked up assists but his style of play didn't seem to benefit Bridges or Washington. Melo will bring them all up.

Once he gets the scoring going he’s a walking triple double. Very good rebounding guard and the playmaking is unreal 

[DepressedKnicksFan 26]

I say expect horrible FG% but great counting stats and steals.

 

Hornets dont have much pieces for future. They should give him free reign and keys to have ball in hands. Will be interesting how Rozier/Graham/Hayward and Ball share the rock this year.

 

If LaMelo can shoot or play off the ball. I think the 3 guard lineup could be explored in Charlotte.

[CORTEz 1,119]

It's really going to be simple moving through the season.

CHA is going to have to decide whether he's a liability out there, or if he's doing enough positive things for the offense.

Steals might be up, but that doesn't mean "he's a good defender".

 

I think it's somewhat likely that we won't see him eclipse 10.0 PPG, as much as people want him to.

I think we could be looking at him seeing between 18-25 minutes per game in his rookie season, with both Graham and Rozier still on the team.
 

I think his EOS Averages could look like this: 36.0 FG%, 64.0 FT%, 0.8 3PM, 8.5 PPG, 5.5 RPG, 5.5 APG, 1.2 SPG, 0.1 BLK, 2.9 T/O

Will this go up in years to come? Yeah, probably...but I think unless you're looking for semi-decent "popcorn" stats for REB/AST while punting basically everything else, he's going to be fairly useless from a consistency standpoint. Regardless of whether these numbers end up being accurate or not, he's going to destroy you in FG%, FT%, BLK and T/O. 

[ROTY 863]

2 hours ago, CORTEz said:

It's really going to be simple moving through the season.

CHA is going to have to decide whether he's a liability out there, or if he's doing enough positive things for the offense.

Steals might be up, but that doesn't mean "he's a good defender".

 

I think it's somewhat likely that we won't see him eclipse 10.0 PPG, as much as people want him to.

I think we could be looking at him seeing between 18-25 minutes per game in his rookie season, with both Graham and Rozier still on the team.
 

I think his EOS Averages could look like this: 36.0 FG%, 64.0 FT%, 0.8 3PM, 8.5 PPG, 5.5 RPG, 5.5 APG, 1.2 SPG, 0.1 BLK, 2.9 T/O

Will this go up in years to come? Yeah, probably...but I think unless you're looking for semi-decent "popcorn" stats for REB/AST while punting basically everything else, he's going to be fairly useless from a consistency standpoint. Regardless of whether these numbers end up being accurate or not, he's going to destroy you in FG%, FT%, BLK and T/O. 

You need to bump all those numbers up. Also Devonte is not a good defender, undersized, and not an efficient shooter and he got all the minutes he could handle last season. Don't think for a second Lamelo will get benched because of his lack of D

[stay_woke 1,244]

What's his durability like? I think he will be more of a points league guy this season and if he can play almost every game I think he could be very valuable there.

[mattshhh 203]

Westbrook's rookie numbers:

2008

Thunder

82

32.5

15.3

39.8%

27.1%

4.9

5.3

1.3

0.2

Something in this ballpark? Maybe a couple more rebs/assists and a couple fewer points? A blast to own but someone who will be overvalued unless efficiency comes around or his stocks are strong

[RedDogNamedClippers 2,364]

1 hour ago, ROTY said:

You need to bump all those numbers up. Also Devonte is not a good defender, undersized, and not an efficient shooter and he got all the minutes he could handle last season. Don't think for a second Lamelo will get benched because of his lack of D

Because on a team that lacked scoring last season, Graham was needed. The team still lacks scoring. Besides Hayward, who else can score? 

[Gile Pile 1,206]

The kid will play.  %s will be an issue  but he can be special in real life.

LaMello is 6'7", the same height as Hayward or Bridges. Rosier is 6'2, Graham is 6'1".

Think about way better rookie version of Draymond (btw he is 6'6").

 I expect to see heavy dose of small ball lineup: Ball, Graham, Hayward, Rozier and PJ.

[hornrimmed_rambis 2,086]

I like that they have played him with Hayward and Rozier for a good set of minutes.

Ball is guarding Bembry (a wing) and switching on the perimeter to bigs with ease. The game just comes very easily to him. 

[sld12 95]

Didn't have a chance to watch tonight's game, but LaMelo was -17 and Rozier was +4 and Graham +7 lol.  Is LaMelo just a highlight reel without a winning edge?

[indigorivers 385]

45 minutes ago, sld12 said:

Didn't have a chance to watch tonight's game, but LaMelo was -17 and Rozier was +4 and Graham +7 lol.  Is LaMelo just a highlight reel without a winning edge?

Wait it's the 2nd game of the preseason. He came off the bench playing most his minutes with non shooters and closed it with the deep bench. The guys a passer with no one to pass to.

 

His games unorthodox though. Still trying to gauge what hell be this season.

[tazdingo 363]

He's making Miles Bridges not look like a bust so that counts as something. His jumper is just as weird as his brother's though.

[BykeINIT 156]

lamelo is going to have a nice career in the nba, no doubt 

 

but he will be a bit of a gamble in his rookie season imo

 

rozier and graham are both guna eat up a lot of minutes at the point guard position..

 

the minutes he does get will be used to adjust to the nba game imo

 

not saying he won’t have big nights with some occasional great counting stats.. it just doesn’t feel like a safe bet to draft him in the top 100 quite yet 

[perkinsfor3 433]

Im hearing the exact same things as what we were hearing with his older brother "whrn he gets a jumper, it's over!"

 

Meanwhile, Lonzo still can't play in half court sets and will be losing his job to Kira Lewis before we're past game 36. 😁

Edited December 15, 2020 by perkinsfor3

[nomidi 63]

For fantasy purposes he's basically a way to fill some AST/STL categories late in drafts. He's going to be very inefficient in the FG%/TO departments but hopefully not enough usage to completely crush those categories.

I'd expect 6-7APG/4-5RPG/1.5SPG if he can hold onto 28-32MPG. I think he's very much like his brother when you are looking at fantasy contributions.

For instance if I was already punting TO's he'd be someone I'd look to target to solidify my AST/STL totals or dominate them even harder.

[battaginlemon 598]

18pts in 26min on 4/9 from 3,coming from the bench.. a bit quiet in here! 

[Basketboss21 272]

Love the Ball-Bridges connection!

[ROTY 863]

37 minutes ago, battaginlemon said:

18pts in 26min on 4/9 from 3,coming from the bench.. a bit quiet in here! 

His bust potential is virtually 0 right now. Kid is gonna be an absolute marvel to watch over the years. 19yo and out there with the confidence to play the way he does, finding his teammates great looks and getting his own. I'm so glad I picked him up in dynasty 

[perkinsfor3 433]

He looked really good. Taking big steps game over game.

[Wise guy 27]

Realistically.. who do we see him replacing in the starting lineup? 
It’s only a matter of time before they give him the start.. looks like a player to build around. 
 

[FrankLilly 4]

Unless there is a trade he’d probably end up replacing Devonte in the starting 5 at some point. Rozier is too important to their defense. 

 

[hornrimmed_rambis 2,086]

1 hour ago, FrankLilly said:

Unless there is a trade he’d probably end up replacing Devonte in the starting 5 at some point. Rozier is too important to their defense. 

 

The challenge for Borrego is that both Devonte and Rozier are weak complementary guards, because they need to be in rhythm, dribbling the ball to make their 3p shots, usually in transition. If Rozier is the better defender, he is also not as good a pure shooter as Graham. But Graham is better with catch-and-shoot 3s, from what I've seen.

Either way, the important thing is that Ball has to start. Let one of the other guards go to town as the 6th man, scoring the ball. I think the 6th man will be Rozier.

[DezedandConfused 2,983]

13 minutes ago, hornrimmed_rambis said:

The challenge for Borrego is that both Devonte and Rozier are weak complementary guards, because they need to be in rhythm, dribbling the ball to make their 3p shots, usually in transition. If Rozier is the better defender, he is also not as good a pure shooter as Graham. But Graham is better with catch-and-shoot 3s, from what I've seen.

Either way, the important thing is that Ball has to start. Let one of the other guards go to town as the 6th man, scoring the ball. I think the 6th man will be Rozier.

I don't see Rozier becoming the 6th man, that'd be basically telling the 2nd highest paid player on the team, we don't want you anymore. There was talk of all three being in the lineup for small ball lineups (Rozier-Graham-Ball-Hayward-PJ) but that group would get wrecked defensively. I could see them trading either Rozier or Graham and my guess is Graham who would be RFA after this upcoming season. I think part of the reason why Charlotte drafted Ball was to replace Graham after this season without having to overpay for Graham, just my guess we'll see. 

Edited December 18, 2020 by DezedandConfused

[perkinsfor3 433]

Graham is starting over Rozier if one has to go.