LiAngelo Ball the middle brother to NBA bothers LaMelo and Lonzo Ball, went undrafted in 2018 after having a stint with the UCLA Bruins and Prienai of the Lithuania Basketball League. After being undrafted LiAngelo singed with the Oklahoma City Blue of the NBA G League as a practice player, later on he would be waived without playing a single game for the Blues. Following that, Ball would sign with the Detroit Piston’s training camp and then soon also will be waived by them too.
In the summer of 2021, Ball was invited by his brother LaMelo to workout with his team, the Charlotte Hornets. This was possible since the Hornets allowed their own players to bring on in their personal workout partners of their choice. After a couple of workouts with the Hornets the Charlotte staff was impressed with LiAngelo, and would be given a spot for their Summer League team. In his first Summer League game, he had five 3-pointers in 16 minutes. In those five games played he would then go on to average 9.6 ppg, 0.4 apg, 2.0 rpg, while playing 17.6 minutes per game. You would think that these stats would get him a spot on the actual roster or even sign a two-way contract with the Hornets, but in this case it is not he is still a free agent.
On Twitter after the Summer League was over, Shams Charania of The Athletics revealed that the Hornets are looking into brining in LiAngelo on a Exhibit 10 contract. The report made by Shams made all of the NBA’s fans believe that LiAngleo will be in the league playing along side his brother LaMelo in Charlotte. This would mean that his father Lavar would have his dream come true by having all three Ball brothers in the league.
Unfortunately, as of now, this dream come true is still a dream. Ball still has not been offered that Exhibit 10 contract by the Hornets or even any contracts by other teams in the league.
In recent news, Roderick Boone of The Charlotte Observer stated that “bad news” is approaching LiAngelo. With training camp coming up fast, the Hornets announced that they have signed another player on Monday, not being Ball. An Exhibit 10 contract was given out to Xavier Sneed instead of Ball. Sneed appeared in 13 games last season for the G League Greensboro Swarm, averaging 8.1 ppg, 4.0 rpg, adn 1.9 spg. He was a four year player at Kansas State. The signing of Sneed, who impressed the coaching staff of the Summer League seems to have been highly on him instead of Ball. During the Summer League Sneed averaged 6.3 ppg, 3.3 rpg, and 2.0 assists in the four games he played. It seems as if those stats were good enough and surprisingly better than Ball since they offered Sneed the Exhibit 10 and not him.
With the Hornets filling out their final roster spot for training camp it looks as if LiAngleo’s goal of playing in the NBA along side his brothers is still far from becoming a reality.
With Ball still a free agent, and while there are no reports of teams being interested in him, there are some teams that will be making a mistake in not brining him into training camp. It does not hurt to bring him in an Exhibit 10 contract with it being a no risk type of move. Those three teams being the Los Angeles Clippers, Brooklyn Nets, and honestly any team that need shooting.
The Nets and Clippers are the best possible teams since they are teams that are expected to make a run for a championship, but with such a high-priced roster and eventually being at the cap, they need to find hidden gems like Ball where he can be given a minimum contract or even a two way contract. Being a elite shooter and playing defense at a high rate already, the Nets and the Clippers would be stupid to not sign him. With all that being said, there is still hope for LiAngelo to be signed in this upcoming season.
