LaVar Ball didn’t waste any time weighing in on Charlotte’s decision to move on from LaMelo Ball, and he made his feelings loud and clear.
Speaking on the podcast Ultimate Dads Unplugged, Ball said the Hornets will “go from sugar to s--t real quick” without his son. He also said he wanted a title for LaMelo and was fine with where the trade sent him.
“When he was on there, I told him two things. I said, 'Yo, you ain't never win no championship just with Melo by himself.
What you must do is get is get his two brothers or trade him.' And they traded him the next day, so it's all good,” LaVar said.
The move came on June 25, when Charlotte agreed to send LaMelo and Josh Green to the Minnesota Timberwolves, sources told ESPN's Shams Charania. In return, the Hornets got Naz Reid, an unprotected 2033 first-round pick, first-round pick swaps in 2028, 2029, and 2030, plus second-round picks in 2029, 2032, and 2033.
Charlotte also received the draft rights to Matteo Spagnolo and Mouhamadou Gueye. The deal was part of a four-team trade that sent Julius Randle to the Brooklyn Nets and Nicolas Claxton to the Chicago Bulls.
LaVar’s comments echo the kind of reaction he made in 2019, when the Lakers dealt Lonzo Ball to New Orleans for Anthony Davis. At the Drew League, he told ESPN's Ohm Youngmisuk that it was “the worst move the Lakers ever did” and said the team would never win another title. Los Angeles won the championship the following season.
LaMelo’s production has been central to Charlotte’s recent seasons. Last year, he played 72 games and averaged 20.1 points, 4.8 rebounds and 7.1 assists.
Since the Hornets drafted him third overall in 2020, he has put up 20.8 points, 5.7 rebounds and 7.3 assists across 303 games in six seasons. He won Rookie of the Year in 2020-21 and made the All-Star team the next year.
Charlotte’s best stretch last season came after a 4-14 start, when the team ripped off nine straight wins between January and February. That run was the longest in the franchise’s current incarnation. The Hornets finished 44-38 and ninth in the Eastern Conference.
LaMelo also delivered one of the biggest moments of Charlotte’s year on April 14, scoring the winning layup in the final 10 seconds of a 127-126 play-in victory with 30 points and 10 assists. But Orlando had already built a 38-16 lead after the first quarter and went on to win the elimination game 121-90. Charlotte has now gone 10 straight seasons without a playoff berth, the longest current drought in the league.
Jeff Peterson, Charlotte’s president of basketball operations and general manager, told Marc J. Spears of Andscape that he was comfortable making the deal, pointing to Brandon Miller and Kon Knueppel.
Miller played 65 games and averaged 20.2 points, 4.9 rebounds and 3.3 assists while shooting 38.3% from three. Knueppel, a rookie who appeared in 81 games, averaged 18.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and 3.4 assists and shot 42.5% from deep.
Cooper Flagg finished ahead of him in Rookie of the Year voting by 26 points.
Cleaning the Glass rated LaMelo, Miller, Knueppel, Miles Bridges and Moussa Diabaté as Charlotte’s best five-man lineup last season, with a plus-27.4 net rating in at least 500 possessions.
The Hornets also saw Bridges go to the Phoenix Suns for Grayson Allen and Royce O'Neale. Coby White re-signed in June on a three-year, $74 million deal to open at point guard. Charlotte then added Dorian Finney-Smith from the Houston Rockets and Dennis Schröder in a five-team trade on Aug. 20, and drafted Hannes Steinbach 14th and Christian Anderson 18th.
Charlotte opens the regular season on Oct. 21 at Brooklyn, then plays its home opener against the Atlanta Hawks.
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