According to ESPN’s Shams Charania, the Charlotte Hornets are shutting down LaMelo Ball for the rest of the season as he undergoes minor procedures to address nagging wrist and ankle pain he’s been dealing with this season.
Team doctors and outside specialists concluded that the two procedures will allow Ball to heal and have a full offseason. The decision ends Ball’s career year in scoring. He is the first player in Hornets history to average 25 points and 7 assists in a season, per ESPN research. https://t.co/seU0hN6QKE
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) March 28, 2025
First things first–it’s nice of Shams to go out of his way to mention that LaMelo has been toughing it out through pain in recent weeks. He’s obviously had that information fed to him, but it does do a little bit to help Ball’s image of being soft and unwilling to play if he’s uncomfortable.
I don’t know what the procedures are, but they’re deemed ‘minor,’ and Shams notes that the expectation is for LaMelo to have a full and healthy offseason. I’m not a doctor, but the implication here is that these are probably some minimally invasive arthroscopic surgeries to do some cleanup or something. Those types of operations tend to have a recovery time of just a few weeks and have little aftereffects if the patient does their rehab and stuff.
The wrist discomfort might explain why we’ve seen such a drastic dip in LaMelo’s shooting efficiency since the start of the season. If you’ve spent any significant time watching the Hornets this season, you’ve surely seen him twisting and messing with his wrist, so it’s clearly been bothering him for a while.
This ends LaMelo’s best season as a scorer, even if his efficiency has dipped. The Hornets are in the home stretch of the season, and with them being in a cluster of teams vying for lottery slots two through four, it makes sense for them to shut Ball down early. It also gives him a head start getting ready for next season, which will hopefully be better than the last several.
