Hornets’ LaMelo Ball suffers devastating ankle injury
The injury struggles for LaMelo Ball have continued in his third season.
Ball fractured his right ankle during Charlotte’s game against the Pistons on Monday night, the team announced. He tried a crossover dribble against Detroit guard Killian Hayes in the third quarter, but when Ball stepped back behind the 3-point arc, he appeared to land awkwardly on his right foot.
According to a video posted on Twitter, Ball appeared to tell a Hornets staffer, “It popped. I heard it pop.” In its release, the Hornets revealed that Ball will be out Wednesday against the Suns and “updates regarding his status will be provided as appropriate.”
It’s the latest injury setback for Ball, the star guard who Charlotte drafted No. 3 overall in 2020. He sustained a Grade 2 sprain in his left ankle that made him unavailable for the opening 13 games of the regular season, when the Wizards’ Anthony Gill stepped on that area. But just three games after he returned, Ball tried to save a ball from going out of bounds and stepped on a fan’s foot — aggravating that same left ankle.
The Hornets were seconds away from a 125-113 defeat that night, with Ball scoring 26 points in his first home game of the season, but that kept him out of the lineup for another month.
Similar to that second injury, Ball’s fractured ankle Monday night occurred during a productive game for the 21-year-old. He had connected on six 3-pointers and compiled 18 points on 6-for-9 shooting, adding five assists and another six rebounds. Hornets forward Gordon Hayward called the injury disappointing because “he’s a major part of our team and we felt like we were rounding the corner,” according to the Associated Press.
“It’s just a basketball ankle and there is nothing that you can do about that,” Hornets head coach Steve Clifford said following the game.
The Hornets still managed to defeat the Pistons, 117-106, but they’re 23 games under .500 and 14th place in the Eastern Conference — nowhere near the seeding required for a spot in the play-in tournament. Ball has averaged a career-high 23.4 points per game this year, one season after he made his first All-Star Game and started 75 games.
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