With the college basketball season over due to the coronavirus, the NBA has turned attention to the upcoming draft. Anthony Edwards, Onyeka Okongwu and Obi Toppin are currently billed as top prospects from the college level.
Yet, there is a steady crop of prospects coming from outside of the NCAA’s realm. Names like Killian Hayes, Deni Avdija and RJ Hampton will be popular when the draft rolls around in June.
Another name ready to make the jump to the NBA is LaMelo Ball. The youngest Ball brother spent the past season playing for the Illawarra Hawks in Australia’s National Basketball League.
In the NBL, Ball and the Hawks faced off against the Golden State Warriors’ former center Andrew Bogut.
With the Warriors slated to own a top pick in the 2020 draft, Bogut offered up a scouting report on Ball in an interview with Damon Bruce, Ray Ratto and Matt Kolsky on San Francisco’s 95.7 The Game.
I saw a little bit of him. He played really well against us one game. He has a great ability to get into the paint from the guard position — can handle the ball very, very well and I think his passing and playmaking is at an elite level already. Obviously, his jump shot — which has been talked about a lot — will determine on how well he goes in his career. I think it’s very inconsistent from three, and it’s kind of a herky-jerky shot that he’ll probably have to fix much like his brother has. His brother is shooting the ball very, very well with New Orleans this season. I think his playmaking and the way he runs a team for a guy that young really stood out for me. The defense has to improve, but I think that’ll change with coaching and development in a good NBA program. But he’s looking at a chance to be a No. 1 pick or a top-five, top-ten pick. It’s great for our league to know that he came over here and played and we hope he does very, very well in the NBA.
In one game against Bogut and the Sydney Kings, Ball tallied 16 points on 7-of-19 shooting from the field in 27 minutes. The Chino Hills product added six assists and six rebounds for the Hawks. Bogut recorded five points and nine rebounds in 22 minutes for the Kings.
With Golden State’s need for a scoring option behind Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, Ball could be an intriguing option at the top of the draft for the Warriors.
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