When high school basketball draws national headlines, you know something is monumental. Yes, the whole country is fixated on the New England Patriots’ 34-28 overtime win over the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI. Atlanta led 28-3 with 2:03 left in the third quarter. Depending on your viewpoint, it is either the greatest comeback or greatest collapse but that is another story.
The story of this blog entry is -- 92 points? By one single player? You’re kidding, right? There are Eastern Conference NBA teams that don’t score that much in a 48 minute game. Yet, LaMelo Ball of Chino Hills (California) did exactly that in a 146-123 win over Los Osos. Are you kidding me? That point total is modern day Golden State Warriors/Showtime Los Angeles Lakers level. High school games in California are 32 minutes (four eight minute quarters) compared to NBA games being 48 minutes (four 12 minute quarters).
Ball, whose older brother (Lonzo) is a freshman on the UCLA men’s basketball team, is a sophomore and has drawn jaw-dropping praise as well as consternation. Ball was 37-for-61 from the field (7 of 22 from 3-point territory) and 11 of 14 free throw attempts.
There is a backstory is Ball’s performance.
Ball told ESPN's Myron Medcalf that his performance was dedicated to a classmate, Lexi, who is in the hospital. His teammates, aware of the situation, encouraged him to keep shooting as the points piled up, Ball said. Ball is ranked the No. 19 recruit in the 2019 ESPN 100 poll and committed to UCLA in August 2015.
Ball scored 41 of his 92 points in the fourth quarter. Ball’s performance, however, drew the ire of Los Osos coach Dave Smith, who called Ball’s performance "a joke," according to the Los Angeles Times. According to the Times, Smith said Chino Hills players fouled on purpose to prevent his team from running out the clock and stopping Ball from scoring more.
"That's wrong," Smith said, according to the newspaper. "It goes against everything CIF [California Interscholastic Federation] stands for. The Ball boys are very talented and great players, but it's embarrassing to high school athletics.”
Besides dedicating the game to his classmate, there are two other layers to the story. For openers, the Ball family's middle brother, LiAngelo, is sitting out the next couple of weeks for Chino Hills to rest for the playoffs, giving LaMelo more freedom in the offense. LiAngelo scored 72 points in a game earlier this season. Both LiAngelo, a senior, and LaMelo are committed to UCLA.
The other layer is that Bell scored several points as a result of cherry picking. By definition in basketball terms, cherry picking refers to play where one player does not play defense with the rest of the team but remains near the opponents’ basket. The price the opposition pays for not defending said player is creating a 5-on-4 advantage as they try to score, but if the defense steals the ball, it could make a long pass to the cherry picker for an uncontested basket.
Disapproval of cherry picking stems from the fact that the cherry picker is not playing the complete game and accumulates statistics for points scored that exaggerate the player's prowess.
As I look at this game and Ball’s achievement from afar, I can’t help but be amazed. My goodness, you could lock me in a gym for an hour with no one guarding me and I doubt I would score 92 points. However, there are more salient reasons I have no issue with the team and individual achievements. Los Osos scored 123 points, which means Chino Hills needed all 146 of their points to seal the win and of that meant Ball scoring 92, so be it.
Let’s also look at the quarterly breakdown, Chino Hills led 40-24 after one quarter, 71-45 at halftime and 103-79 after three quarters. The game might not be signed, sealed and delivered but it’s close enough to keep the starters in the game.
While I get the basketball purist side of not liking the concept of cherry picking, there are two things equally true. For openers, it is not illegal. It is within the rules of the game. Secondly, if you don’t like the player doing it, stop it. Period. There is nothing stopping your team from putting a defender on him. It’s simple, you say, “Billy, follow that Ball kid wherever he goes. If he goes to the water fountain, follow him. If he goes to his English class, follow him.” You get the idea. If he goes to the bathroom, follow his ass in the stall if you have to stop him from scoring.
It comes down to the basic idea of this, Ball’s achievement came within the framework of winning the game. It’s not like he scored 92 points in a 165-17 win over a vocational school.
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