Charlotte Hornets search for creativity as LaMelo Ball’s injury leaves them in limbo
The word Charlotte Hornets coach Charles Lee kept coming back to Wednesday night?
“Creative.”
It makes sense why.
After all, “creative” is what the first-year head coach — and his team — will have to be as they enter a difficult chapter of the team’s already rough 2024-25 season after Monday, when star point guard LaMelo Ball went down with an ankle injury and hasn’t returned to the court since.
Lee said as much before Wednesday’s contest in Spectrum Center, which ended in a 104-83 loss to the Brooklyn Nets. He’s been saying it all season given all the injuries that have piled up in Charlotte — but this particular injury feels a bit different.
“It’s hard to make up Melo’s production,” Lee said. “With all that he does, and he does it in such a unique way, and he’s able to sustain it for an entire game, and create so much open space and opportunities for all our guys.”
He added: “Just trying to be a little more thoughtful of how we go through our offensive game plan, our defensive game plan, and even rotations at times too. Games that Brandon was out, (we said), ‘Let’s try to have Melo and/or Miles on the court at all times so we do have that primary ball handler out there.’ So trying to be creative, which is fun. I feel like one of my strengths is being a problem solver, and (injuries) definitely make you have to solve a lot of things.”
Lee was told postgame of Ball’s latest status. MRI results on his left ankle confirmed that it is a left ankle sprain, and the Hornets said their guard will be re-evaluated in one week, news that the head coach welcomed but still leaves his team in a bit of limbo at present.
At least Lee knows what his team’s immediate future requires should it want to continue on its season-best run to date over the past three weeks. What’s required? Adjustment, resilience — and yes, creativity.
And for some of Wednesday, all three of those traits were on display. The Hornets were without four starters — Ball, Josh Green (right foot), Mark Williams (left foot, injury management) and Brandon Miller (wrist, out for season) — and struggled offensively, putting up only 83 points on 33.7% field-goal shooting. The few flashes of competence were furnished by Vasa Micic (15 points, six assists) and Miles Bridges (23 points on 21 shots).
The defense, too, was equally rough: The Nets’ big backcourt, anchored by Ben Simmons and D’Angelo Russell and Keon Johnson, couldn’t be stopped; the three combined for 34, and the Nets as a whole outscored the Hornets in the paint 54 to 34.
When asked if he thought his team was adequately creative, Lee didn’t hesitate.
“I think we were,” he said. “I think we had multiple ball handlers out there. Tried to play through Miles at times because he’s able to create for himself and for others. … I feel like there were a lot of different ways for us to score.”
A steeper climb awaits, no doubt. It’s what happens when a team’s two brightest stars are sidelined for a good portion of time halfway through January. That’s Ball and second-year wonder Miller, who tore a ligament in his wrist and was announced as out for the season earlier this month.
”It’s unfortunate they’re not going to be on the court right now,” Lee said. “But the great thing is they’re not going anywhere, and we have some plans for them to get healthy, to get back, and I’ll be heavily involved, as will the coaching staff, the performance staff. So it’s one of those things that we’ll continue to work and get better.
“There’s a plan to also get them to stay engaged with the team. They’re going to have to show film to Nick Smith Jr. Watch a Greensboro game and have a couple clips for (rookie) Tidjane Salaün. So we’re just trying to get creative to make sure they’re still engaged with what’s going on and continue to just help everybody grow.”
The tall task of replacing LaMelo
The No. 3 overall pick in the 2020 draft — and the man who signed the most lucrative contract in Charlotte pro sports history last offseason — isn’t exactly easy to replace. Stats bear that out.
Coming into Monday’s contest against the Lakers — “with Ball,” in other words — the Hornets had won four of their last seven contests and had appeared to have hit a stride with their star point guard leading the charge. In the month of January, Ball averaged 25.5 points and 7.8 assists — sustaining his season averages of 28.2 ppg (fourth in the league, per ESPN) and 7.3 apg (ninth) — and he took his defensive game to another level. It was enough to almost make him a starter in the All-Star game.
All that production is a lot to replace. And the Hornets have struggled trying to do so before.
Every year besides his rookie year, Ball has suffered substantial lower-body injuries. Ball missed 106 games with injury in the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons combined, and his absence has hurt the Hornets’ quest to quench the league’s longest active playoff drought — which sits at eight seasons now and is looking more and more like it will be nine.
‘He’s like the team’s caffeine’
And that’s all without mentioning the intangible impact Ball has on the team. Josh Okogie, the former Phoenix Suns guard the Hornets traded for earlier this month, wasn’t shy about his disappointment Wednesday.
“That guy is a high-energy kid, man,” Okogie, 26, said of his 23-year-old backcourt mate. “I’ve been around a lot of guys in this league, and one of the (characteristics) of the good ones is the energy. And he has extremely great and high energy. It kind of feeds off to the rest of the team, you know?
“When he’s not around, you kind of feel like you need a coffee or something. He’s like the team’s caffeine, you know what I’m saying? He’s really good, fun guy. On the court it’s fun to play with him. Off the court, he’s just a fun person to be around.”
Okogie added that “injuries are the toughest part of this game,” and that you never want to see anybody — but “especially not a guy like that, who’s the head of the snake” — suffer an injury and put his head down.
“We’re here to lift him up,” Okogie added. “And we got his back.”
The Hornets will just have to be creative to do it.
This story was originally published January 29, 2025 at 10:29 PM.
