Detroit Pistons 2020 NBA Draft Profile: LaMelo Ball

LaMelo Ball’s Weaknesses

So first, let’s address the elephant in the room. That’s an ugly jump shot Ball sports these days and he uses it a lot.

There’s no way to sugarcoat it. Ball needs to fix his shooting mechanics as soon as possible and if he never manages to do so, that will hinder his career dramatically. To be an efficient scoring point guard in the NBA, one needs to be able to shoot.

Ball’s mechanics are terrible. He doesn’t create good upward momentum with his legs, his elbows are looking at opposite directions and his release point is too low, among others.

In my estimation, his draft position is going to rely heavily on how much he improves until the draft. He’s made some improvements during the season, especially with his base, and teams will be seriously interested in how his jump shot looks in workouts.

Being a high pick, he can choose which teams he’ll work out for and I’m assuming that will give him a lot of control over where he gets drafted. Few executives will use a high pick on him without that information.

At this point, I want to point out that shooting percentages should be taken with a grain of salt. Ball made 20 out of 80 threes, which is really bad but is also a very small sample. In that sample, there’s also a lot of noise.

As a high NBA prospect in the Australian league, Ball had a high usage that resulted in very bad shot selection. His teammates often differed to him late in the shot clock. He shot 16.7 field goals, 6.7 of which behind the line. That’s a lot for an 18-year-old in a professional league.

That’s both good and bad news. The good news is that in a better situation, he probably won’t be getting as many isolations and he can focus more on setting up teammates. The bad news is, he shoots more than he drives.

Despite the fact that he can use his handle to get anywhere he wants on the floor, he generally chooses to pull up instead of attacking the rim. That could be because he’s trying to improve his shooting by getting in reps.

That would be the best explanation if he didn’t show an overall tendency to avoid contact. Even when he attacks, he tends to shy away from bigger defenders which results in many floaters, awkward finishes and settling for pull up jumpers early in the clock.

His 0.235 free throw rate is a great indicator of that fact and a big red flag. Being physical is an integral part of the game of basketball and improving it will be, as far as I can tell, the biggest factor to Ball’s success in the NBA. Even more so than shooting.

Playing in a professional league is tough for a teenager and it’s not surprising that he’s trying to avoid contact with physically mature men but it also raises a big question about how he’ll do at the next level where the competition is even tougher.

On the defensive end, physicality has even greater importance. In Australia, Ball was smart enough to make the right rotations as a help defender but he was reluctant to put his body on the line and contest, defeating the purpose, according to the analysis of Spencer Pearlman of the Stepien.

That lead to a lot of failed attempts to steal the ball and a lot of easy buckets for opponents. In the NBA, that doesn’t fly and if he’s not ready to commit physically, he’ll have trouble even getting on the floor.

Ball was also inattentive on defense most of the time, often disinterested, not in a defensive stance, especially when away from the action. On the ball, he was often pushed around due to his slender frame and didn’t try his best to get back on the play. Often, he died on screens.

Again, these are criticisms that apply to the majority of draft prospects, especially those with big offensive roles. The same questions were hanging around his brother Lonzo, for example, and he has become a great defender.

That’s the uncertainty of the draft. You can’t really know the outcome of a player beforehand. You can only have an understanding of their work ethic and motivation to predict how they will improve.