Will LiAngelo Ball be the Steal of the NBA Draft?

• LiAngelo Ball is shooting 44-percent from the floor and 45-percent behind the arc in Lithuania. Is he ready for the NBA?
• Will an NBA team take a flyer on Ball with a late second-round pick?
• Will LaVar Ball make life miserable for the Lakers if they don’t?

LiAngelo Ball is back in the news, and this time around it has nothing to do with grand larceny. The middle Ball brother has announced he’s making himself available for the 2018 NBA Draft and will participate in the Pro Basketball Combine at IMG Academy in May.

Of course, announcing you’re available and actually being ready are two very different propositions, and it’s highly doubtful that the 6’5” 19-year-old shooting guard will attract any serious interest.

LiAngelo was a three-star recruit out of Chino Hills High School and was the 50th ranked shooting guard in the 2017 recruitment class.

The younger brother of Lakers sensation, Lonzo Ball, LiAngelo was a three-star recruit out of Chino Hills High School in California and was the 50th ranked shooting guard in the 2017 recruitment class. He committed to UCLA, where he was expected to come off the bench, but LiAngelo’s collegiate career was cut short after he was implicated in a shoplifting scandal during a team trip to China.

LiAngelo Ball has entered the NBA DRAFT ? @LiAngeloBall @ZO2_ pic.twitter.com/N0WCGyffDq

— Overtime (@overtime) March 27, 2018

LiAngelo left school shortly after and has been playing professionally in Lithuania ever since, where he’s averaged 15.7 points, 2.9 rebounds, and one assist in nine games for Vytautas Prienu. LiAngelo’s raw numbers have been impressive, but the level of competition he’s facing has been somewhere between what you might see in NCAA Division II and your local YMCA.

If this were baseball with its seemingly endless 40 round draft, it would be easy to imagine a team taking a flyer on LiAngelo, but it’s not. The NBA has only two rounds and every pick counts. Few, if any, NBA teams would be willing to waste a valuable pick on an unproven commodity when they could nab a bona fide blue chipper or an intriguing European with considerably more upside.

The one thing LiAngelo has working in his favor is his father, LaVar, who has threatened to pull Lonzo off the Lakers unless the franchise signs all three of his sons.

The one thing LiAngelo has working in his favor is his father, LaVar, who has threatened to pull Lonzo off the Lakers unless the franchise signs all three of his sons. It’s an intriguing storyline, but most NBA teams wouldn’t even want all three Plumlees, yet alone all three Balls. LaVar’s bluster is unlikely to sway the Lakers, who have done a masterful job of tuning out his braggadocio and ignoring his outrageous acts of self promotion.

We’ve taken LiAngelo’s talent and bloodlines into consideration and have come up with fresh odds for his future as a professional baller. Let us know what you think in the comment section below.