Much like his oldest brother coming out of college, the biggest question mark surrounding LaMelo Ball’s game on the court heading into the 2020 NBA Draft remains his jumper. While Lonzo’s jumper was unorthodox, it was effective as he hit 41.2% of his three-pointers at UCLA.
LaMelo, on the other hand, has an unorthodox shot that saw him shoot just 25.0% from range with the Illawarra Hawks in the NBL last season. And that jumper has been the cause for much consternation among NBA teams.
In a recent episode of the Wine and Gold podcast, Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor noted that Ball’s jumper continues to scare off NBA teams (h/t HoopsHype).
“I talked to an evaluator that’s been watching LaMelo and Deni Avdija and a lot of these other guys for a number of years now. And the term that was used for LaMelo’s shot was ‘broken’. Now this is just one person’s evaluation of it. And then when I asked about Deni, because his shooting percentages were low as well. The person told me that he thought it was fixable.”
Ball’s jumper will continue to be one of the main talking points when it comes to discussing him as a prospect. It’s the most glaring and obvious weakness in his game and with the draft still far away, he’ll continue to have his game broken down and examined with the negatives coming out much more than the positives, as is the nature of discussing prospects.
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