Beautifully Twisted
On LaMelo Ball, gambles worth taking, and a basketball-first move that makes sense all around.
A couple of weeks ago, on the eve of the draft and in the immediate aftermath of Pat Riley and Jon Horst sounding the starter’s pistol for NBA summer, I put down some thoughts on the Washington Wizards outbidding themselves to blow the excess value of AJ Dybantsa’s early NBA seasons on Trae Young.
As I did so, news broke that another mercurial point guard, LaMelo Ball, was on the move, with swingman Josh Green, to the Minnesota Timberwolves, in exchange for Naz Reid and draft capital. I went in with both feet, under the mistaken belief that the deal was for Reid and three unprotected first-round picks, not just one, seven years out, three swaps, and three second-rounders. That matters.
I don’t know how much that matters to the version of me that initially saw the news. Primarily because dealing a productive, locally beloved cornerstone of a core that feel one win shy of three straight conference finals appearances1 is never appealing. But, also, LaMelo was decidedly not a worthy exception.
It wasn’t that I had anything against LaMelo’s game. Not exactly. Savants with performative streaks are why we give a shit about any of this in the first place. His blend of irreverent and irrepressible should be nurtured. I’d just never bothered to contemplate him as more than a gifted novelty. The serious of the unserious. When there’s real shit at stake, his shit gets scary.
But, so what?
Getting Serious
I won’t pretend to have watched tons of Charlotte professional basketball since Eddie Jones and Baron Davis were involved. Even last season, they’d been hot for a second before I got drawn in. Regardless, from late-January on, the Hornets leveled up to a degree not seen since the pre-HD days.
Credit was rightly given to Kon Kneuppel, the #4 overall pick who slid seamlessly into the NBA as a fantastic volume shooter and “steadying star.” Also, 2023 #2 overall pick Brandon Miller, who lost two-thirds of his second NBA season to injury, suited up 65 times and made more than 38% of his 3-pointers, en route to 20 points per game. It does bear mentioning, however, that both guys, both in terms of efficiency and raw numbers, dropped off, basically across the board, after the All-Star break.
Yet the team powered through the second half, winning 29 of 40 (including play-in) to close out the season. That was LaMelo Ball.
From January 22 on, LaMelo was phenomenal, averaging roughly 21-5-7 and playing pretty good defense, with an outlandish +13.7 on/off split2. He anchored an offensive juggernaut that, relative to the rest of the league, was the best the Queen City had seen since Dave Cowens coached Anthony Mason in Kobe Bryant’s rookie year.
From a team perspective, 44 wins, the East’s #9 seed, and a play-in shortfall were the best of his NBA career. That damns with faint praise, I know, but we work with what we’ve got. But…
Compared with what I had seen before, the whole thing felt fundamentally different, “real” in a way I’d never equated with this outfit. Maybe not “grown up,” but capable of holding down a job and feeding itself.
A Fresh Look
If you’re not careful, neon Lamborghinis and shitty driving can obscure a lot. Namely, just how innately someone channels the game. LaMelo doesn’t fit the traditional “basketball junkie” archetype, midsummer videos from empty gyms, “best shape of his life” features, or unflappable defiance.
His is a savant’s sincerity. His love letter to basketball is his oneness with the game he’s playing right then.
In full flow, his blend of fluidity, processing speed, and beautifully twisted imagination exhilarates. Sure, he turns the ball over — for what it’s worth, he cut his turnovers after the break, to 2.4 per game, well below his career average of 3.7 — not through bone-headed decisions, but expression and experimentation.
He’s not just doing spectacular shit for its own sake. He does useful basketball shit, spectacularly. He implicitly trusts what he sees right then, the angles, the permutations. And he’s just that confident — or testing out a theory.
He’s trying something that only he’s seen and can work. You’ve just got to trust him. Sometimes it doesn’t. Occupational hazard. But when it does, he jolts a building like few of his more efficient, accomplished contemporaries can:
It’s unbridled, engulfing.
Charlotte’s Shift
That the Hornets parted with their ostensible superstar on the heels of the most successful run of his career could be painted as telling. It can also be explained.
I recently wrote that, “... a Trae-led offense is always going to be, to a fairly significant extent, the Trae Young Show.” LaMelo doesn’t play the same heliocentric style, but his effect isn’t much more malleable. That’s not bad, just situation-dependent.
The Hornets’ front office is a relatively new one. GM Jeff Peterson has only been in his chair since March 2024. He didn’t give LaMelo a 5-year, $206 million contract that’s still got three years and about $130 million remaining. If his vision for the team he wants to assemble doesn’t involve this type of identity-defining point guard, there was no other way to go. This is Peterson, his feet firmly under the desk, meaningfully charting a new course.
(A quick aside: We must also acknowledge the injury record. LaMelo missed nearly 60% of the Hornets’ games (141 of 246) in the three seasons after his spectacular 2021-22 sophomore campaign with a variety of left and right ankle injuries, as well as a wrist injury that required surgery in 2024-25. Last year, he was healthy and awesome.
There’s really not much more to be said. You make some assessment of the risk, do whatever contingency planning you can, and hope for the best.)
Trading Miles Bridges to Phoenix came with the primary benefit of not having to think about extending him. It was also identity-shifting. And not just because he’s a shitbag. He’s a remnant from a now-bygone era. But really turning the page had to involve LaMelo. And if you’re there, two unprotected first-round picks and three swaps (from the Wolves and Suns), a quality starter in Reid, and a couple of solid vets (Grayson Allen and Royce O’Neale) for the pair is not terrible business.
The Hornets will be worse in the short run. Maybe not significantly — it wouldn’t be shocking if they won 40-ish games — but the potential for a run like they had late last season is diminished.
As good as Kneuppel and Miller are and can/will be, at this point neither is an offensive engine unto himself. And they were pretty bad last year without LaMelo. That will improve. They’re 21 and 24, and extremely talented. If it takes a minute, there is help.
Coby White is back on a reasonable3 deal, to efficiently replace most of LaMelo’s statistical production. 24-year-old efficiency monster Moussa Diabaté — who shot 63% and posted a league-best 139 offensive rating and an All-Star-caliber .188 Win Shares/48 in 1,899 minutes last season — will be allowed to grow into a bigger role. The 3-and/or-D veterans (Dorian Finney-Smith is also here) will keep things grounded. And they drafted a massive, apparently Day One-ready rebounder. They’ll grind out wins. Not that many, but not to worry. This season is about firming up the foundation.
(Highly rudimentary scouting has me very excited for #18 overall pick Christian Anderson, but he’s small (6’1”, 180) and 20 years old. I want to put eggs in that basket, but he, too, will need at least a minute.)
And Minny?
The Timberwolves’ postseason exploits in their first 34 years of existence consisted of ten first round exits and two playoff series wins — both in 2004, with MVP Kevin Garnett, Sam Cassell, and Latrell Sprewell knocking off the Nuggets and Kings, before falling to the Lakers of Kobe, Shaq, GP, and this asshole in the West finals. I can understand reticence to break up a group that nearly managed that feat each of the past three years.
An apex two-way superstar, a bully-ball secondary option, an elite defensive anchor, and tough, versatile veterans around them — all of whom seem to like one another — can take you an awfully long way. With a touch of luck, it can take you all the way.
It can also make one a bit precious about a core that has possibly hit its ceiling and, due to age and finances, is approaching the end of its run. As great as nearly making three straight conference finals runs is, a straight run-back, simply betting that “this time will be different,” is dicey business.
So, Tim Connolly got proactive.
First, the low-hanging fruit: Julius Randle. He is not the secondary star to entrust with Ant’s prime and, possibly, happiness in Minneapolis. He’ll also be playing on the last guaranteed year of his deal, at $33.3 million, with a $35.8 million player option of his own for 2027-28. Making all that Brooklyn’s problem makes sense.
Of course, it still leaves 21-7-5 in the box score to replace.
Ayo Dosunmu, back on a five-year, $112 million deal, will help. After a rough 2024-25 from the outside (32.8% from 3), he rediscovered his shot last season, first in Chicago, where he hit 43.9% from deep in 45 games, then in Minnesota4, where he averaged 14.4 points, on 52-41-93 shooting in 24 outings.
But with Donte DiVincenzo likely out for the year with an Achilles injury, that’s not enough for a team with real ambitions. The only remaining pathway to a meaningful splash was parting with Reid or Jaden McDaniels. Losing either is a huge blow, no two ways about it. (For the record, I like Naz Reid, but would also have moved him if forced to choose.) Doing so for the right, ceiling-raising spark, though, is a shot worth taking.
Why Now?
Rudy Gobert just turned 34. He won’t be a game-shifter on D forever, and he’s playing on a $38 million player option next season. Also, an extension for Anthony Edwards5 on the horizon. Asking him to shoulder a greater load with less high-level help than before would be ill-advised.
In LaMelo, the Wolves get an ideal counterweight and running mate. From a practical perspective, he’ll absorb Randle’s creative role and not only ease Ant’s ball-handling burden, but create opportunities for him as a cutter and spot-up shooter. At scale. And he’ll do it as the most dynamic offensive engine at the point this organization has ever seen.
There’s also the matter of just how Minnesota has succeeded recently. The hallmarks of recent Wolves teams have been persistent toughness, intensity, and versatility. That’s awesome. That gets shit done. But it doesn’t always manifest in “fun.” A fourth go-round that won’t mean much before May could start feeling “heavy” for the incumbents. LaMelo will inject levity and exuberance into this team, and Target Center crowds. This will matter.
That LaMelo never made the playoffs proper in six seasons in Charlotte will be bandied about. “Didn’t” will be conflated with “can’t” any time he encounters a moment he’s “not up to.” It shouldn’t be. Some will find concern in the fact that his only role in the NBA has been as a #1 superstar, and that his game suggests he relishes that.
Well, he just got traded to a situation where no such debate could even exist. There’s no ambiguity about “whose team this is.” He is the gambit to ensure that homegrown superstar doesn’t develop a wandering eye — not said superstar. And his new team is eyeing the Finals, not a playoff spot in the East. I wouldn’t worry about acclimation to the pecking order.
Plus, his fingerprints will still be all over this team. What if being an offensive hub, alongside a bona fide superstar (let’s talk about LeBron if he shows up here after this most recent offseason victory), on an established, now fun-as-hell top-five seed with Finals ceiling6 is enough?
This was corrected from an earlier version, which said that the Wolves had made the West finals three straight years. Of course, they fell in 7 games to the Thunder in the second round in 2025-26. Thank you to Redditer Akiloko2 for the catch.
His full season mark was an excellent +10.7.
3 years, $74 million.
After a deadline deal for Rob Dillingham and a second-round slurry.
Thanks to the NBA's stupid 65-game requirement for award/honor eligibility, the knee injury that limited Ant to 61 games kept him off the All-NBA teams, making him ineligible for a four-year, $300-ish million supermax. Rather than extend for two and $121 million, he’ll play out this year and likely earn a similar contract in 2027.
Admittedly only theoretical this season, as the big man depth chart behind Gobert consists of a pair of (by opening night) 20-year-olds, Joan Beringer (314 career minutes) and 7-foot3 Aussie Rocco Zikarsky (36 career minutes), and little else