The Charlotte Hornets have announced plans to shut down guard LaMelo Ball for the remainder of the season as he continues to rehab his ankle.
Ball, who has been sidelined since January 26th due to a right ankle injury, has been limited to only 58 games over the past two seasons due to a variety of ailments. With the Hornets well out of the playoffs and sporting an 18-54 record on the year, there’s little incentive for the club to rush the 22 year old back into action in what’s going to be another lost season in North Carolina.
Officially diagnosed as “ankle tendinopathy”, Ball’s right ankle has been a nagging injury which seems to flare up time and time again. His condition is one in which the peroneal muscles, which provide stability to your ankle when walking, are consistently inflamed, causing pain when moving or jumping. The 6’7″ guard was averaging 23.9pts/5.1reb/8ast per game on .433 field goal shooting across 22 games in 2023-24 prior to injury.
“I’m making progress. Doing the treatment every day, just trying to get better. From when it happened, I feel a little better. I’m doing everything you can think of,” said Ball back in December when he initially missed time due to injury.
Having signed a 5 year rookie max extension, Ball’s new contract is set to kick in next year, and will count for roughly 25% of the Hornets cap space. With such a significant financial commitment, Charlotte’s front office will opt to play it safe with the former NBA rookie of the year, and hope that a full offseason of rest and rehabilitation will have Ball back to 100% health for the start of training camp in the fall.
Photo: Erik Drost. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.