Charlotte Hornets Reportedly Open to Trading Franchise Star
The Charlotte Hornets are going through a terrible 4-11 beginning to the season, and it appears that guard LaMelo Ball is growing unhappy with the organization. The former All-Star has also been struggling in the first 15 games of the season for the team, so let’s take a deeper dive into Ball and the Charlotte Hornets to understand why this is happening.
LaMelo Ball Reportedly Unhappy with the Charlotte Hornets
The Charlotte Hornets are struggling to figure out how to fix things and star guard LaMelo Ball has reportedly become open to a trade away from the team, per Yahoo’s NBA Reporter Kelly Iko. This would be interesting and is coming off the heels of the team benching Ball for the final 4:32 of their 127-119 loss on Wednesday.
Ball has not been doing too well on the court this season as he is averaging 12.6 points, 6.9 rebounds, 9.6 assists, and 1.4 steals in 31.3 minutes per game. He is also shooting poorly thus far as the sixth-year guard is connecting on 38.5% from the floor, 29.8% from the 3-point line, and 86.7% from the free-throw line.
According to the report, the front office is hesitant about making Ball their long-term foundational piece, which also makes trading the star a lot more difficult. He is currently in the second year of a five-year, $203 million contract with the team, meaning the Hornets would need to trade him to a team with ample cap space to absorb Ball’s contract if they were to move him.
It will be intriguing to see how things play out for the Charlotte Hornets and LaMelo Ball, as neither have commented about the report as of this writing.
