LaVar Ball was a Carolina Panther. Hornets drafting LaMelo could be a Charlotte reunion
In 1995, the Carolina Panthers employed LaVar Ball.
It’s hard to believe now, but Ball’s two-month stint as a practice-squad tight end for the Panthers went practically unnoticed at the time — even by his own teammates. Ball’s appearance directly behind former team owner Jerry Richardson in the official Carolina Panthers 1995 team photo was, by far, his most enduring moment in Charlotte.
Now, 25 years later, the Charlotte Hornets may soon employ LaVar’s youngest son, LaMelo Ball.
If the Hornets do draft LaMelo with the No. 3 pick they just won in the NBA draft lottery, his time with the Hornets will be far different from his father’s time with the Panthers. Everything LaMelo does will be noticed, in much the same way that everything Cam Newton did in Charlotte was noticed.
LaVar Ball was different — he was a nondescript Panther well before he was LaVar Ball.
I broke the news once to one of the most well-known Panthers on that 1995 squad — wide receiver Mark Carrier — about Ball’s brief stint with Carolina. Then I asked Carrier if he remembered anything at all about Ball’s time in the Panthers’ locker room.
“I had no idea!” Carrier said. “Are you sure LaVar Ball isn’t making this up?”
He isn’t. But since LaVar Ball has also claimed he could have beaten an in-his-prime Michael Jordan in one-on-one hoops, I triple-checked.
LaMelo Ball is only 19, but he’s been famous for years. That’s in part because of a media-savvy father who turned braggadocio into a brand — literally. It’s called Big Baller Brand.
The other part of that equation: LaMelo turned out to be a superb basketball player.
LaMelo has 5.5 million Instagram followers — 20 times more than Devonte Graham, the Hornets’ best player.
He had his own signature shoe while in high school — with Big Baller Brand — but is now reportedly about to get a far more lucrative shoe deal with Puma. He was the youngest American to ever play professional basketball, at 16 — albeit in Lithuania. And he’s the most famous player entering the 2020 NBA draft; it’s not even close.
The youngest of the three Ball brothers, LaMelo has also taken one of the most unusual paths ever to the NBA. He never signed with a college team nor graduated from high school, but he has played high-profile basketball in California, Lithuania, Ohio and Australia. You can’t name any significant high-level game he ever played in America, though, because he’s never had one.
With the basketball in his hands, though, LaMelo is “insanely creative,” ESPN basketball analyst Jay Bilas told me, and his offensive talent is ridiculously good.
And those accolades come despite the fact that, much like his older brother Lonzo Ball, the No. 2 pick of the 2017 NBA draft, LaMelo enters the NBA with a jump shot that — much like his overseas basketball odyssey — is non-traditional.
“He’s going to have to really work on it,” Bilas said of LaMelo’s jumper. “He’s got an odd release. And worse than the odd release? It doesn’t go in.”
But Ball is also going to drive attendance — at least at first, and indefinitely if he becomes a star.
The Hornets were tied for 28th out of 30 NBA teams in attendance last season. They won’t draft Ball just because he could put more people in the seats, as the saying goes, but it’s naive to think that won’t be a factor.
Said NBA TNT analyst Kenny Smith in a recent interview with the New York Post about LaMelo: “He may be able to have your building be electric — if his potential pans out.”
Hornets looking for ‘special player’
While LaMelo Ball is a candidate for the No. 1 pick, it’s possible he will drop to the Hornets or even slightly below them.
Minnesota will pick first, barring a trade. Golden State has the No. 2 pick. Ball is in a group with former Georgia guard Anthony Edwards and former Memphis center James Wiseman as a likely top-three selection, although several other players could enter that mix.
In Australia, Ball’s most recent stop, he was the rookie of the year for the league but only played in 12 games due to a bone bruise. He averaged 17 points, 7.6 rebounds and 6.8 assists, but also shot only 25 percent from 3-point range. As with his other stops, he reportedly endeared himself to his teammates — much like older brother Lonzo, LaMelo’s personality is far quieter than his father’s.
The Hornets already have a point guard in Graham and another player they originally signed to play point guard in Terry Rozier, who moved over to become an undersized shooting guard last season once Graham caught fire.
it would seem that Ball’s position is already taken. But Charlotte general manager Mitch Kupchak has been insistent that the team will draft for talent, regardless of position.
With a top-three pick, Kupchak said on the night of the draft lottery in August, “most times you can get a special player.”
Will LaMelo be that special player?
Certainly his father would think so — he has been proclaiming the Ball brothers as some version of the second coming of LeBron, Jordan or Magic Johnson for some time now. LaVar Ball has said any team that is smart enough to stack all three Ball players on the same roster would win multiple NBA championships (the middle brother, LiAngelo, wasn’t drafted and was most recently trying to make the NBA through the G-League).
LaVar’s brief time with Panthers
LaVar Ball was asked recently by ESPN for an in-depth story on “The Mystery of LaMelo Ball” as to when he knew his youngest son was built for this sort of thing.
“At what age?” Ball said. “Before he came out of the womb. All my boys. That’s why I had three of them. I had three monsters, and I knew I was going to have three monsters.”
LaVar Ball wasn’t talking about monsters or much of anything else when he was in Charlotte 25 years ago. The practice squad is a revolving door on many NFL teams, and players come and go without necessarily getting to know the regulars on the 53-man active roster (Ball was never active for a Panthers game; 754 players have been active in at least one Carolina game in franchise history).
Ball, who had played only one year of college football at Long Beach City College, got signed in late September 1995 by the Panthers, who were then in their first season. By then, he was officially a 26-year-old rookie. The New York Jets had tried Ball out first, both as a 6-foot-5, 263-pound defensive end and then as a tight end. Neither worked out.
Special-teams ace Dwight Stone also played on that 1995 Panthers team and was one of the most gregarious players on the squad. I once asked Stone if he remembered Ball in the locker room at anytime during those two months.
“I try to get to know everybody,” Stone said, “and I have never heard of this.”
Ball had his 27th birthday while still officially a Panther, but the team released him not long afterward.
‘Ball in the Family’ in Charlotte?
Bilas, who lives in Charlotte and will broadcast the draft for ESPN in October, has studied LaMelo Ball’s game for months. On his personal board, he has Ball ranked as the third-best player in the draft, behind Edwards and Wiseman but ahead of players like Obi Toppin (the national collegiate player of the year in 2020 for Dayton) and Israeli pro Deni Avdija.
Listening to Bilas talk about LaMelo is interesting, as he spits out pros and cons at a rapid-fire pace. Here’s a partial transcript:
“Everything got better while he was in Australia,” Bilas said of LaMelo. “He became a more focused player and really matured. But he’s another guy where he’s only played at one end of the floor (Bilas was referencing Edwards, whose defense he believes is similarly suspect).”
“The other part of it,” Bilas continued, “is he’s not been socialized. He’s not taken the standard route (to the NBA). So I don’t know how that factors in to whether he’s going to be as successful as his talent suggests he should be in the NBA.
“He started at Chino Hills (Calif.) High School and he was one of the guys scoring all these points (LaMelo once had 92 in a single game) — but not passing half-court on defense. And then he went overseas to Lithuania, where it was a Kardashian-like experience. You wondered was it a reality TV show (the Balls have one, on Facebook, called “Ball in the Family”). Or was he a player? Or some combination of both? And then he went to SPIRE (Institute, in Ohio) and then to the NBL in Australia. So it’s been an odd path. And so if I were to draft him, I’d want to satisfy myself that he could step in and that his socialization wasn’t an issue.”
LaVar Ball presumably would tell you it will all be just fine — great, in fact. I say “presumably” because I’ve tried to reach LaVar numerous times over the years to talk about his time with the Panthers, including this past week when I also wanted to ask him about LaMelo, and never have been successful. I’d wager that would change if the Hornets draft his son.
“Ball in the Family” in Charlotte? Whatever else you think about it, you have to admit it’d be kind of fun.
This story was originally published August 30, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
