Lamelo Ball & Mark Williams Highlight Mix
The onset of NBA offseasons always come with a litany of questions, yet the Charlotte Hornets at the very least, have a pair of near certainties already in hand. Some of their best, most efficient basketball of the 2023-24 season came when point guard LaMelo Ball and center Mark Williams were both playing together. And if they want to reach their ceiling as a team, this pairing absolutely needs to be on the floor a whole lot more than it was this past year.
Ball (22) and Williams (19) combined for only 41 appearances in Charlotte’s injury-plagued campaign, all but seven of which took place after Dec. 8. When the two were available at the same time, the results were encouraging. The pair made it through the opening 14 games unscathed before Ball suffered a right ankle sprain in Orlando on Nov. 26. A few days later, Williams started dealing with a lower back injury that would ultimately become season-ending.
This year was especially difficult for Ball, who spent almost all last summer rehabbing a fracture on the same right ankle that capped off his 2022-23 season at only 36 contests. Ball’s 14-game start to this season – 25.9 points on 44.2% shooting, 5.8 rebounds, 8.6 assists, and 1.5 steals – certainly makes it more difficult not to wonder what could have been. Entering that ill-fated Orlando outing riding a career-long streak of four straight 30-point games, Ball and Nikola Jokić were, at the time, the only two NBA players averaging 25-5-8 with at least 1.0 steal.
Though he returned to play in all but one of the team’s eight games between Jan. 12-26, soreness lingered in Ball’s troublesome ankle. Despite doing whatever he could to make yet another comeback, it just didn’t happen, and Ball was shut down for good on March 28.
“The game I went out [on Jan. 26 against Houston], it was hurting and as time went on, it wasn’t feeling NBA-ready for like a game,” explained Ball during exit interviews. “My favorite thing to do is play basketball, so not being able to do that is obviously horrible. I’m just going to take this summer and get it as strong as I can, so I’m out there and can play.”
Like Ball, Williams needed to spend a good chunk of the 2023 offseason working his way back from a surgically repaired torn right thumb ligament. The second-year seven-footer led the team’s post-All-Star-Break defensive turnaround last season and there was certainly an eagerness to see what he could as the full-time starting five. Williams put up a double-double – 13.2 points on 65.3% shooting, 10.1 rebounds and 1.0 block – over the first 18 games, which included a career-high 24 boards (a franchise-record 15 offensive) in Washington on Nov. 10.
The Duke product started feeling something in his lower back during the team’s last-second victory in Brooklyn on Nov. 30. Though he appeared in two of the next three games, Williams had to depart in the third quarter of a home game against Toronto nine days after the initial pain began. “I was like, ‘This isn’t normal,’” said Williams, recounting his final outing of the season on Dec. 8. “I can’t pinpoint exactly falling or getting hit or something. It was more of like an after-the-game thing when the adrenaline [of playing] went away. It’s not something I like doing, sitting out, but this isn’t a surgery situation or anything like that. It’s a matter of getting back to being comfortable enough to play, moving how I move, and jumping how I jump.”
Given how notoriously tricky back injuries can be sometimes, especially for big men, Williams’ rehab has been handled with the absolute utmost precaution. The absolute last thing he or the Hornets want is for this injury to flare up again or trickle to somewhere else in his lower body.
“I’m totally going to be okay,” said Williams at exit interviews. “Right now, it’s about building my strength back up so it’s not a lingering issue. I’m able to shoot some, do more in the weight room. A lot of stuff I’m doing now is focusing on my core, getting that stronger. Before, I was trying to avoid overhead lifting, but now I’m starting to do a little bit more of that. Just building back up to basketball activities outside of shooting, so playing live and getting back in shape.”
Charlotte’s 5-9 record this year with both Ball and Williams is a tad skewed, given that Miles Bridges, Terry Rozier, Cody Martin, and Nick Richards collectively missed 37 games during this early-season time frame. Even being so banged up right out of the gates, the Hornets ranked first in paint points (58.0), seventh in second-chance points (15.8), 10th in pace (100.75), and 19th in offense (112.3) across those 14 games, numbers that all plummeted to last (45.8), 28th (11.4), 24th (97.21), and 29th (107.8) from Ball’s injury in Orlando and on.
The Hornets’ defense never really found its footing this season, although did put together some decent stretches here and there. Williams and Ball are both excellent rebounders, so their absences, plus having a smaller second unit with Richards moving into a starting spot took a heavy toll on the glass. Charlotte sat eighth (31.2%), 11th (72.2%), and eighth (51.3%) in offensive, defensive and total rebounding percentages over its first 14 games, rankings that, again, went into free fall afterwards; last (24.0%), 23rd (70.6%), and 29th (46.7%).
Of the 65 different three-man lineup combinations that played 150+ minutes for the Hornets this season, the one with the best net rating (5.4), defensive rating (109.5) and rebounding percentage (52.9%), featured Ball, Williams, and rookie Brandon Miller (12 games). Only two of the 18 four-man lineups that registered 125+ minutes finished with a positive net rating and the best one by far (5.5), consisted of Ball, Williams, Miller, and Gordon Hayward (10 games).
Strictly not having the production that Ball and Williams could provide is one thing, but this season also prevented the two from building some much-needed chemistry with each other. In total, they have been on the court together for only 603 minutes spanning 40 games since the start of the 2022-23 campaign. To put that into perspective, the Hornets’ most-used two-man lineup – Miller and Miles Bridges – shared 1,619 minutes over 63 games just this past season.
Charlotte had plenty of injuries and bad luck to go around this season, but the ones to Ball and Williams had a predictably devastating impact on its offense, pace, rebounding and rim protection. These two 22-year-olds have the talent and complementary skillsets to form one of the NBA’s top point-guard-center combos. Most importantly though, the Hornets need them both available to become the team they’re capable of becoming.