CHARLOTTE, N.C. — In case you missed it while trying to find a spot of shade, a fireworks display or a safe roller coaster over these scorching past few days, LaMelo Ball has an agreement in principle on what will be by far the richest contract in Charlotte team sports history.
That question that understandably insecure Hornets fans have been asking for the past three years — But what if Melo leaves us and we have to start over again? — no longer applies.
The Charlotte Hornets have reached an agreement with Ball that will keep him under contract for the next six seasons. He has agreed to a five-year, maximum contract extension that kicks in after the 2023-24 season and could end up totaling as much as $260 million over the life of the contract, league sources have confirmed to The Charlotte Observer. Ball will be eligible to officially sign that contract as early as Thursday.
It’s a gargantuan deal that dwarfs the previous huge contracts in Charlotte team sports history: Gordon Hayward, Nic Batum and Cam Newton all at one point signed deals that ranged between $103 million and $120 million. Ball’s contract will at the least be worth $207 million in guaranteed money, and that’s the low end.
Did Charlotte overpay him?
In a global sense, absolutely.
That’s a ridiculous amount of money for anybody in the world to have. Plus, Ball hasn’t gotten the Hornets to the playoffs yet, played in only 36 of 82 games last season due to multiple ankle issues and tends to regard the NBA as his own personal open gym run, for better or for worse.
But look at it this way.
The Hornets had to do this. They must build this team around Ball, the dazzling and exuberant point guard who has the highest upside on the team and is still, somehow, only 21 years old.
Keeping Ball here before any drama ensued was a promising sign for the team’s new owners, Gabe Plotkin and Rick Schnall, who recently bought out Michael Jordan’s majority share. According to ESPN, the Hornets were one of only two NBA teams to never have given out a contract worth more than $120 million (Orlando was the other) until now. They just gave Ball a deal that may double that figure.
It’s worth noting that Ball’s deal isn’t an outlier in NBA terms. Three other members of Ball’s 2020 NBA Draft class have now signed a very similar max contract extension — Indiana’s Tyrese Haliburton, Memphis’ Desmond Bane and Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards. ESPN reported that three of those four — Ball, Haliburton and Edwards — all have All-NBA escalator clauses in those extensions which could move the guaranteed $207 million all the way to $260 million.
While I’m not thrilled about the Hornets signing Miles Bridges for another season due to his off-court issues, and the drafting of No. 2 overall pick Brandon Miller also raises various questions, this one to me is a no-brainer.
You had to retain Melo; everything else has to follow from that. He puts people in the seats, he’s a career 37.7% three-point shooter despite that unorthodox jumper and he is one of just a half-dozen NBA players to average at least 20 points, six rebounds and six assists over the past two seasons.
He’s still a work in progress, too. The Hornets make no secret out of wanting more leadership from Ball.
“It’s natural for a point guard to at some point assume a leadership position,” Hornets general manager Mitch Kupchak said in June, in a news conference shortly after the NBA Draft concluded. “They’ve got the ball in their hand. They’re calling the plays, they’re calling the defense. You know, they’re up front. ... And that’s our hope that he would develop and grow into that.
“He’s only 21,” Kupchak continued of Ball, who is about to start his fourth NBA season and turns 22 in August. “That’s ridiculous, right? Think of yourself when you were 21. Would you be capable of leading an NBA franchise? Probably not, right? But that’s our hope, that he’ll grow into it, and he’s showing signs of doing it.”
Leadership is an issue for the Hornets. Bridges’ return will help in that regard — Bridges has a forceful personality and a chesty on-court persona. But Ball’s laid-back Californian vibe sometimes hasn’t translated into a leadership presence. When Ball chose to stick around and watch one of Miller’s pre-draft workouts — at Kupchak’s urging — the GM took pains to compliment the effort.
As Kupchak recounted, recalling some recent conversations with Ball: “I said, ‘Listen, these guys are coming in. Why don’t you come by and watch?’... He sat with our coach, he sat with Michael (Jordan), he sat with the new owners. It served a lot of purposes for him to be here. And that’s typically not something that he’s done in the past. You know he’s kind of in and out, right? And he seemed at home.”
So that’s what needs to be next for Ball. On the court, there’s still room for improvement. He manages shot-clock situations very poorly at times, especially at the end of a quarter. He occasionally falls in love with the 28-foot 3-pointer too much. His defense can always get better. And like so many top NBA players, he thinks he should get every call and protests too much when he doesn’t.
Really, though, it’s off the court where Ball must become better. No, Melo never gets in trouble, which isn’t a minor thing on this Hornets roster.
Still, Ball must assert himself more. He needs to lead. He needs to think, “What would Kobe do?” when something goes wrong or when a teammate is dogging it. He can’t make Terry Rozier or Bridges doing the leadership dirty work. And it can’t be all Hornets coach Steve Clifford and his staff, leading from the top down.
This massive contract? It’s a step forward for the Hornets, ensuring one of the world’s best point guards will play here throughout the 2020s.
But now, LaMelo Ball must earn his money.
