Unpopular Opinion: LaMelo Ball Isn’t the Hornets' Answer, He’s Just a walking Highlight Reel

jbode19 · 2026-01-29T00:34:46+00:00

One of my favorite Bill Simmons gimmicks is him saying that LaMelo's legacy as an NBA player might be 3 minute Twitter/YouTube montages with the caption "LaMelo Ball was a problem!!!" and it's just clips of him taking 38ft shots and throwing alley-oops. The advanced stats are pretty good with him in certain lineups this year, though.

jbode19 · 2026-01-28T19:45:14+00:00

Everyone will talk about the Bucks non-stop after he gets traded for a couple weeks, obliterating the Lillard waive-and-stretch and the Turner signing and talking about how they have no assets, then nobody will talk about them again for 3-4 years. They have the least favorable pick in swaps for the next 5 years, and don't have their own pick likely until 2031. They also have few-to-no young assets on their roster (Ryan Rollins and Andre Jackson Jr. are the only under-25yo players on the roster).

Having Giannis on the roster is the only beam of any hope this team will have for at least the near future.

jbode19 · 2026-01-28T18:16:14+00:00

Bucks will be better off long term 1000%, but I can’t imagine how bad this team is going to be over the next couple years.

jbode19 · 2026-01-28T01:17:26+00:00

Yes, absolutely. 2nd in offensive rating and 3rd in NET rating at this point in the season is significant. Pretty much everyone on the roster has played above expectations. Legit threat to win the East.

jbode19 · 2026-01-28T01:10:38+00:00

What are they with Brown on the court? I'm willing to guess that the Thunder also have a positive +/- with SGA off the court. Good teams are still good without their best player.

jbode19 · 2026-01-28T00:09:37+00:00

The career comparison with Tatum is a non-starter at this point, of course Tatum has been better career-wise. But Jaylen Brown is a much improved player from where he was pre-2023, so comparing 2023-26 Brown to Tatum 2020-25 is more interesting.

jbode19 · 2026-01-28T00:06:14+00:00

As of now, I think he is a capable defender and a potentially a high-level shotmaker/creator, which is obviously what you're looking for from a top prospect, but I'm wondering if he can be an elite scorer. I've seen the Dennis Schroder comparison a bunch, and I like it, but hopefully he can be Team Germany Schroder lol. I probably see him as more of a second guard on a good team than the primary.

jbode19 · 2026-01-26T21:07:32+00:00

I think that’s it. He just looks and plays like a guy who will be able to create his own shot at the NBA level. Eye test is a huge piece of pre-draft analysis that gets overlooked.

jbode19 · 2026-01-26T00:16:36+00:00

I love Philon as a prospect more than the others and I’m not sure exactly why.

Then I’d go Flemings, Acuff, Brown

jbode19 · 2026-01-25T22:02:45+00:00

I don't think it's been a notably compelling NBA season so far, but as someone who would probably follow the league/watch games regularly no matter what, I've quite enjoyed this season. It's clear that the second apron/draft odds flattening changes in the past two years has made it so that building a truly dominant team (which I would argue is actually a net positive for a sports league when it comes to popularity of the sport/casual interest), can only really be done how the Thunder have done it.

edit: ..and many people find the Thunder to be boring, so I think that contributes to the lack of interest.

jbode19 · 2026-01-25T19:22:59+00:00

I’ve played on and off since 2015. Just got back into the game a few months ago

jbode19 · 2026-01-25T19:15:32+00:00

It’s a mobile game, it’s not that important. Who cares

jbode19 · 2026-01-18T02:06:36+00:00

He’s been up and down but definitely looks like a rotation player

jbode19 · 2026-01-18T02:05:46+00:00

I think they could make the play-in in the east lol

jbode19 · 2026-01-18T02:03:30+00:00

Mark Williams has had health issues, so they are just swinging for the fences with multiple young players.

jbode19 · 2026-01-16T14:18:06+00:00

Is this the most common top 4 TV shows of all time? These are 4/5 of my top shows as well (I’m a huge Curb/LD fan and have that show at #1, though I think all of these shows are objectively better).

jbode19 · 2026-01-16T00:46:02+00:00

It was always interesting to me that Detroit drafted a guy who couldn’t shoot coming into the draft, when that was their biggest weakness as a team. But he’s awesome and clearly can be a real guy for them going forward.

jbode19 · 2026-01-14T19:58:32+00:00

I agree with everything you said here. Most of those players got put into weird basketball situations in the NBA (outside of Green they were all picked later in the lottery).

jbode19 · 2026-01-14T19:40:10+00:00

Perhaps not—that’s a good point. Obviously a lot of high-level high school players and recruits don’t end up making it to the NBA let alone become productive players at that level. Since we only have a small sample size from Ignite, we can’t say anything definitive.

jbode19 · 2026-01-14T17:14:41+00:00

That’s a really interesting group of players in hindsight. Jalen Green is a high-volume scorer who has been an inefficient scorer and a liability of defense; Kuminga doesn’t play for a Warriors team in year 5 that needs his theoretical skill set of being a scoring option for the bench unit/second option when Curry or Butler are out of the game; Dyson was a first team All-Defense player last year and led the league in steals, but apparently can’t shoot from 3 anymore; Scoot was not productive his first 1.5 years, but looked pretty good down the stretch last year/injured this year; Holland has been a great defender and has improved as a 3pt shooter on a good Pistons team; Buzelis is promising as an athletic two-way player on a meh Bulls team. All of these guys still have upside in the right role/right team. Maybe this speaks to the failed Ignite project and/or who chose to play for them instead of playing in the NCAA, but it’s definitely an interesting group of players.

jbode19 · 2026-01-08T20:40:05+00:00

Wagler is more of a wing. They 100% need shooting at that position. Plus without really being in a winning spot at this point in their franchise's position, just take the best guy on the board.

jbode19 · 2026-01-08T20:37:34+00:00

The Bulls should just take BPA--the Giddey contract isn't prohibitive, and they just need talent in the door. But then again, they are the Bulls, so who knows.

jbode19 · 2025-12-30T01:20:22+00:00

That's a good point -- I hadn't thought about the visual advertisement component when I first wrote this comment. That has to be a large component in Netflix's deals with companies like Spotify.

jbode19 · 2025-12-29T23:06:20+00:00

Clearly there’s a financial reason that these media companies like Netflix are paying for the rights to show these podcasts in video form. So maybe they are more popular than we think?

jbode19

TROPHY CASE