LaMelo Ball Showed Off His Ridiculous Passing In His Preseason Debut

The long, weird road LaMelo Ball took to becoming an NBA player came to an end on Saturday night. Ball and the Charlotte Hornets took the floor for a preseason game against the Toronto Raptors, and the No. 3 pick came off the bench in what was certainly an up-and-down performance. The down stemmed from his scoring — Ball had zero points in 16 minutes on 0-for-5 shooting.
His scoring was always going to be something that took some time. The stuff that Ball can do, though, that got him drafted so high was also on display. The 6’8 guard ripped down 10 rebounds, the most among everyone who appeared in the game. And like his older brother Lonzo, LaMelo’s got unreal feel for the game, which meant that he was able to produce a handful of highlight-reel passes that sometimes led to assists.

Ball only had four assists on the night, but as you can see in the above video, some of the passes he busted out speak to the basketball IQ that you just do not see out of 19 year olds. There are going to be plenty of growing pains for both Ball and the Hornets throughout this season, but the highs are going to be quite high, and at the very least, Twitter will end up being abuzz with their highlights on a near-nightly basis.

As for the game, Charlotte was unable to kick off its preseason with a win. Toronto came out on top, 111-100, behind 16 points off the bench by Matt Thomas.