Lonzo Ball was drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers as the No. 2 overall pick back in the 2017 NBA draft, making him the first out of three siblings to be given a chance to perform on the highest basketball stage of them all. Three years later in 2020 the youngest brother, LaMelo Ball, was selected by the Charlotte Hornets as the No. 3 pick in the first round of the draft after most people believed neither him nor the middle child, LiAngelo Ball, would ever make it into the league. With LaMelo winning the Rookie of the Year Award he has proven doubters transparently wrong as LiAngelo looks to achieve the same task this summer after being officially signed to the Hornets 2022 summer league roster.
It will be interesting to observe how well the two youngest Ball brothers play together considering they absolutely took over the high school basketball scene when they all previously played together at Chino Hills. LiAngelo Ball is the only Ball brother to enter himself in the NBA draft and go unselected as the night concluded. The young athlete believes he did not get picked up by a team due to his previous criminal charges in China, back in 2018, when the 22-year-old was caught shoplifting while on a team trip with the UCLA basketball team; Ball suspects the unfortunate outcome of the draft had nothing to do with talents or ability, but everything to do with his off-court behavior.
LiAngelo has been through a rough sequence of events on his journey to finally receive the title as an NBA athlete and join his two brothers in creating inevitable greatness. “He’s not on any of our scouting lists—even the extended list,” a general manager from ESPN told Adrian Wojnarowski on Ball being considered for the 2022 draft back in December. However, his performance for Vytautas Prienų in Lithuania, by averaging 13 points and 3 rebounds over the span of 14 games, might have just been enough to catch the eye of the right person who could truly make his basketball dreams come to life. The ball is not yet on the official lineup of the Charlotte Hornets, but if he somehow manages to put on a show in the summer league there will be no doubt we see Ball’s real NBA debut this year.