Should The Hornets TRADE LaMelo Ball?

Should The Hornets TRADE LaMelo Ball?

Cali Eco posted this. Amidst a rough 4-11 start, Hornets star guard Lamelo Ball has grown increasingly frustrated with the organization and is open to a trade. League sources tell at Yahoo Sports. Now, that wasn’t the only portion of that conversation because certainly uh Melo went to social media to quote tweet it and give his thoughts on it later in the day. So, uh with a simple emoji Melo a few words in this situation, he just put the clown emoji out. So, I think you know, Melo’s telling us I’m not into this, but it it it raises an interesting question because look, uh, one of our producers, Doug Branson, eats, breathe, sleeps all things Charlotte Hornets. And, uh, I I feel like we have heard a lot about this at this point. What I’m trying to figure out, Caroline, is should Charlotte move on from LaMelo Ball? And that feels like a shocking question, but it’s the right question based on the reports and the results so far. No. No. No, no, no. I think right now where things stand, what’s the point? I I don’t think that Charlotte should trade LaMelo for two reasons. One, there are some franchises in the NBA that need a superstar. And let’s just be honest, that’s what the Charlotte Hornets are. The Memphis Gri Grizzlies are so much more relevant nationally because they have a superstar in Jamarant. There are certain franchises and there are certain media markets. There are certain teams in certain cities that just need to be elev elevated by the level of star power on their roster. That’s what LaMelo Ball does for the Charlotte Hornets. Like the Charlotte Hornets aren’t the Lakers, let’s be honest. The second reason is the Hornets have a core of young players that they can continue to sell to their fan base and can continue to build around and Brandon Miller and Melo and Coniple who we had a conversation yesterday about him looking like a legitimate rookie of the year candidate possibly even the sexiest Duke product from last season. So if I’m the Hornets right now like I like there’s no need. What’s the point? Why would you move on from LaMelo when you have an on the court plan, at least it looks like, continuing to build around these young stars? And also, he sells tickets and puts butts in seats. That’s the hardest part about all of this is like puts butts in seats. I have several friends and co-workers that work in the Memphis area. So, when I started digging into everything with Jaw, one thing I was repeatedly told by people around the team is that you can’t just move Jaw unless you have a replacement for ticket sales that equals Jaw. And I’ll remind you that at least as of right now on ESPN.com when they rank NBA attendance, last in the league is the Charlotte Hornets. They are literally in last place. So to me, at some point, we have to start to look at some of this and understand what LaMelo means to a franchise versus what he would mean to another franchise. And that’s why this is a hard conversation because you’re right, he puts butts in seats. The name, the brand, the image of it puts butts in seats. It it raises interest for the Charlotte Hornets. But does that name, brand, image create enough of an impact to make the return worth it on the open trade market? And my answer to that is probably not. Like if you went to trade LaMelo, suddenly you’re talking about the fact that he hasn’t been regularly available. And you’re asking yourself, can somebody that’s shooting as poorly as he’s shooting from deep right now actually have tremendous trade value? I don’t know. Can he be reliable enough to give you tremendous trade value? I think the answer to that is no. So when you have a young core that you’re building, if you trade one of the young pieces around it, your answer needs to be it’s either making this young core better, which I think is going to be hard to get enough return of investment for, or we’re making our future so much better, it helps the young core. I don’t know that Charlotte as an organization would want to take the step back in relevance and attendance and all of those things and the message it sends to the locker room and all of the fans by saying, “Hey, we’re going to move on from him, but trust me, we’re getting some draft picks over the next few years.” I looked at every trade calculator I could find and I laughed at every return in value for LaMelo because I just don’t think that like for like really exists in the NBA and there are certain teams that just can’t afford to take less than in a like forl like trade situation and I I think there is a world that exists where this could happen at some point. I don’t think now is the time because you mentioned our producer Doug Branson. has such a great pulse on the Charlotte Hornets fan base. And what he told us was at this point, look, Kon Canipple’s balling and you have maybe that that young star that people are buying into. LaMelo’s hurt. He’s had several ankle injuries that have kept him on the court consistently because uh as the the stat that Doug sent us, which was, you know, astonishing to me, which kind of piggybacks the conversation we had with Tom Habstro a few days ago about injuries in the in the NBA, um that Brandon Miller and LaMelo Ball have played just a teeny tiny fraction of games together on the court. They’ve been on the roster together. So, it’s the ankle injuries. It’s it the immaturity, frankly. It’s the offthe-court antics or maybe the extracurriculars that come with LaMelo Ball that at day by day, I think that the Charlotte Hornets fan base can start to stomach the idea of moving on from LaMelo. That’s the fan base perspective of it. But as you lay out, when you’re the Charlotte Hornets’s front office, you’re not going to move on from a guy that does bring the kind of level and intrigue that LaMelo brings for nothing. If you start to see I if the moving on from LaMelo for whatever you can get from him starts to outweigh the not trading LaMelo, then we can start to have that conversation. But I don’t think it’s gotten to that point yet. Yeah, I agree with you completely. Uh as we continue to break that down. Now, that’s not the only news from the association. Last night, I do want to give a little bit of love uh to Tyrese Maxi for doing what seems to be, yes, normal stuff this year in the NBA. 54 points. I only say normal cuz he’s the six this is the sixth time already before Thanksgiving. We’ve had a 50 plus game in the NBA, but 54 points, nine assists, three steals, three blocks, Sixers win. Are we ready to just put the absolute superstar label on Tyrese Maxi? Not yet. And look, Tyrese Maxi’s second leading scoreer in the NBA right now. You dropped 54 points. Like that will that’s on our show. That’s gonna lead Sports Center. That’s going to go viral on social media. But in the NBA, I think in order to be considered an absolute superstar, it’s becoming an all-star. Of course, Tyrese Maxi was an all-star two years ago, but going back to the all-star game, I think starts to, you know, put those pieces together. And then doing it in the postseason, doing things in the regular season. Yes, it’s great. It’s wonderful. But we just have the the NBA news cycle turns over so frequently that a 54 point game no longer becomes headline news or no longer is in the forefront of our minds just 24 hours later. If you do it in the postseason, when not just NBA heads are paying attention, but when the entire sports world is paying attention, that is what elevates you to superstar status. doing it in the postseason. I think you’re right. And part of that is just because you have more eyeballs, you have more attention. And as I’ve yelled at repeatedly already in the history of our show, the way we cover the league, and not just us, players, uh, fans, everybody, it’s what have you done in the playoffs? How many chips do you have? Like the coverage has required the underselling of regular season greatness. That’s just the way that the sport is covered at this point. So to your point, I think having one or two series in a playoff where he takes off and he takes control and he’s the reason they win will truly catapult him to superstars status. That’s that being said, I feel like this is this is boiling over this year. Between the 76ers being a little better than we expected and being much different than we expected in the way that they’re doing it and between the amount of the workload he’s taking and the way it’s changing the conversation about where the f franchise is, where it’s headed, what they should do with guys like him be the entire tonal conversation makes me think he’s there. But I do think like to me he is a superstar. But I think to become a household name, oh my god, I can’t believe this guy. To become a billboard in the NBA, you’re right. he’s got to do it in a playoff series or two. There’s there’s going to have to be some level. But that being said, that doesn’t change anything about the fact that right now, if he just sticks to anywhere near this pace, by the end of this season, when we go into the playoffs, he will be absolutely one of the biggest sales pieces of how they broadcast playoff games because he’s playing so well, which is about as close to superstars as you can get. 100%. And I I think there’s two different levels of superstardom. You are an NBA head superstar and you are a certified superstar. You are a sports superstar. You’re a household superstar. I think Jaylen Brunson is probably a great example of that. Jaylen Brunson became a sports household name after what he was doing for the Knicks in the postseason. But if you’re an NBA head, you probably weren’t surprised at all by what Jaylen Brunson was doing. Tyrese Maxi, I think, fits that bill as well. And the fact that he plays for the 76ers, I think that playing for that organization and that brand elevates you to a certain extent. You’re a thousand% right. And as I’ve said a million times, the playoffs are for casuals. And once casuals fall in love with you, if you if you walked into a Starbucks and people didn’t say stop saying, “Oh, wow. He must play in the NBA.” And start saying, “Oh my god, that’s Tyrese Maxi.” That’s when you’re a superstar. That that that takes an extra leap. All right, we will keep breaking it down, but coming up next, it’s Friday, which means we got to tell you about Monday. Monday’s top headlines. We’re going to predict some of the biggest outcomes of the weekend.

Yahoo Sports Daily’s Jason Fitz and Caroline Fenton react to the news that LaMelo Ball may be open to a trade – which was quickly shut down by LaMelo himself. They then discuss whether or not the Hornets should be open to moving him.

Tyrese Maxey dropped 56 points last night, a career high! The crew discusses whether he has reached superstar status, or if we need to see a little more.

0:00 Is LaMelo Ball’s time in Charlotte up?
6:00 Tyrese Maxey SHOWED OUT last night… is he a superstar?

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