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00:00 -Lamela Ball broke his wrist in his rookie year, broke his right ankle last season and has had,
00:06 by this point, four to five sprains, whether you consider them all different sprains,
00:12 related sprains because of weakness, I'm not even sure. The scariest thing about Lamela Ball,
00:18 and you actually said this earlier, is that his breaks and sprains, especially like,
00:23 they look like nothing, right? He hits the floor and it looks like any other time someone's fallen
00:29 over and this is like, is it really simple? Can some players just have weak bones? Like,
00:35 is that just a thing that can happen? Could that be the case with Lamela?
00:38 -Absolutely. You know, if you have somebody that's having these reoccurring issues,
00:43 you might order a metabolic panel. What's their diet look like? What's their, you know,
00:47 bone density? Those kinds of things, particularly if our guys had multiple fractures. Is there
00:51 something, is some underlying cause? And that's kind of the thing is once you have one or two
00:55 things, yeah, let's start looking at some other stuff. And, you know, I wouldn't be surprised
01:00 if I've already done that with Lamela and done some evaluating and looking at, is there something
01:03 that we can be doing to help offset? Is there a supplement? Can we help with supplements for this
01:10 or that, that are going to help offset some of those issues that are bugging him?
01:14 -How effective are some of those treatments in improving, like you say, bone density?
01:19 Is it, are we talking like minimal percentage impact or can it be actually quite receptive?
01:24 -I would say because these guys are young, because generally speaking,
01:30 their bodies are a little bit more resilient, they generally respond pretty well.
01:34 Now it does take some commitment to doing that kind of, and some guys it's hard to do, you know,
01:40 asking a guy to change his diet, asking a guy to do these certain things can be problematic. It's
01:44 just, I mean, they're kids, right? Like I know what I was eating when I was 25 years old and
01:49 I would be ashamed of myself if I, you know what I mean? Like, and really, you know, you do everything
01:55 you can to put these guys in a position to succeed. And I do, I honestly think Charlotte
02:00 is doing everything they can to put these guys in a position to succeed. This is not,
02:02 I'm just not going to be the one that paints this brush that Joe Sharpe's the problem here. You know,
02:08 I really do think they're doing everything with what they have at their disposal and doing everything
02:12 they can to ensure the health of these players. -Yeah. We have to talk about what Hornets
02:18 fans called ankle brace gait with LeMelio Ball, where he came into the season training camp saying
02:24 he was wearing ankle braces. Then after he re-sprained his ankle, it was revealed that
02:30 actually he's not been wearing ankle braces because he says he can't play in them. He can't
02:34 plant his feet. This has become a bit of a divisive topic. I guess, firstly, can you talk about
02:43 what impacts do ankle braces have on ankle support? Like what research is there out there?
02:49 How important is this? You know, some people will say they don't matter at all. Some people say
02:54 LeMelio Ball's not taking his basketball career seriously. Can you give us some expert insight
02:59 into this field? -Well, my personal opinion on braces is I'd like you to rehab and get to the
03:05 point where you don't need a brace, right? Your body is going to be the best brace. It's
03:10 biomechanically designed to help itself. Now, sometimes it's almost like a placebo effect.
03:15 Just having the brace on there makes the person feel a little bit more comfortable. Great. Sounds
03:19 good. Let's roll with it. You know, there are so many different designs out there now in terms of
03:23 ankle braces. And you can find ones that are great for specific injuries and things like that.
03:27 Fit in the shoe. Great. It really just depends on the individual and what they want. The research
03:32 is a little bit mixed. Some research says it's really, really helpful. Others say it's, again,
03:37 not as helpful as you would think. I do think there is some degree of comfort that you just
03:44 need to find if you want to play in ankle braces. Even if your ankles are 100 percent great, go for
03:49 it. If you're more comfortable taping, OK, let's get you taped. But ideally, you know, you want to
03:54 be able to go out there and trust that your body's going to hold up. Now, again, if over time you've
03:59 had multiple sprains and that's just not going to work, OK, let's get you in a brace that is going
04:03 to help. It's going to supplement in some degree, whether that is through proprioceptive receptors
04:08 firing. So your body's more aware of what's going on or simply an actual, you know, more and more
04:13 hard brace. It's going to provide stability. But the ankle is tough like that. That's one reason
04:18 why there's such a wide variety of shoes out there in terms of basketball shoes. There for a couple
04:24 of seasons, I tried tracking shoes and man, it was a headache because so many different models,
04:29 so many different brands, guys would change shoes half that go from low top to high top.
04:34 Every player just about probably has their own orthotic in. So it was hard to really draw a
04:39 whole lot of conclusion from some of the shoe data. And I think you're going to kind of see
04:44 something very similar with the braces. Interesting. And it was revealed earlier
04:49 this year that Lamella Ball still has hardware within his ankle following his ankle surgery from
04:54 this past season. Again, could you explain a little bit about what that hardware could be?
05:00 Will that have to be taken out at some point? And he talked a little bit about how that affects
05:06 him planting his feet at times during the season. And he's still suffering from ankle soreness now,
05:12 even after the sprain. And could that soreness be related to the hardware or could that be related
05:18 to his latest sprain? I know I'm throwing about four different questions at you there, Jeff,
05:23 but yes, I'll do my best. So the hardware is a surgical, you know, it could be anything from
05:29 a screw and a plate to stabilize a certain area. They can suture across the bone if it was a high
05:36 ankle sprain to help close kind of those two lower leg bones, that space in between. Sometimes that
05:43 hardware is left in. Sometimes if it can become symptomatic or problematic, they can take it out.
05:49 It really just depends kind of how the individual responds. As far as what's going on, I really did
05:56 think it was interesting how the injury report recently for Lamello switched. It went from
06:00 ankle soreness to ankle tendinopathy. And so that indicates it's
06:06 easily be the stabilizers. So he sprained the ligaments and then the stabilizing structures,
06:15 the tendons of the muscles that help stabilize the ligament were also irritated in the process.
06:18 And those might take a little bit longer. And those tendinopathy indicates potentially some
06:22 tendon damage there, whether that's a mild strain or some tendonitis, something that is lingering.
06:27 And it's unsurprising given the number of injuries that this guy has gone through,
06:31 that his stabilizers might be easily irritated if the ankle is forced into inversion or eversion.
06:36 And so I like the fact that they've been a little more open calling it tendinopathy instead of just
06:41 soreness, because that does indicate at least we know, you know, it's not just this vague thing.
06:47 We know it's potentially or it is muscle related and that's something that you can work on improving.
06:52 And then looking big picture, Lamello Ball's injury, you know, looking forward,
06:58 what can the team do? Obviously, he's had multiple ankle injuries. What can the team do?
07:04 What are the options available to Lamello or to the team? You know, is it just the typical keep
07:10 strengthening the muscles around the ankle? You know, is that kind of the only option available?
07:15 Or we saw obviously Steph Curry was someone who had a lot of ankle issues early in his career
07:20 and then has since essentially avoided them after various, well, after a surgery.
07:26 Do you think it's possible that again, there is more that needs to be done there? Or is it
07:31 just more about kind of maintaining and rehabbing and strengthening at this point?
07:34 Well, the first thing you're going to target is the ankle itself, right? You're going to look at,
07:38 okay, do we have any swelling? Do we have any issues with the ankle itself? Is the integrity
07:43 of the ankle good? What's our range of motion? That's the one people overlook a lot is range
07:48 of motion, especially in dorsiflexion is huge for stability of the ankle. So if you can have
07:52 full range of motion, that's going to be a better indicator and a good indicator of overall
07:56 stability, right? So not just the strength of the muscles themselves. And then you work your way up.
08:01 That's what you saw happen with Steph. Like they realized some of, he had some issues along his
08:07 kinetic chain. So if you think of everything like a chain link, if you have a weak link,
08:13 it's going to be problematic down. It's going to affect the entire chain. And they actually went
08:16 all the way up to his core strength and realized he was having some strength in that area, some
08:21 strength deficits in that area that were causing problems in his lower extremities. So I'm sure
08:26 they're doing that with Lamello doing some kind of biomechanical analysis, kinetic chain analysis,
08:31 to see if there's a problem somewhere else that is potentially contributing to the ankle. Sometimes
08:37 you just sprain your ankle because you came down on somebody, but other times maybe you're
08:41 consistently rolling it because there's some underlying issue somewhere along the kinetic
08:44 chain. - And for Lamello Ball specifically, I mean, I watch every game. Every time he goes for
08:51 a layup, he takes five or six staggering steps and ends up falling into a cameraman or falling into
08:57 a crowd. And some players, I noticed this, you watch, they go for the layup at full speed,
09:03 but they're able to come down and stop. And Lamello seems to, like you say, maybe it's connected to
09:06 that core strength where he is not able to stop his momentum. He always seems to very much veer off
09:13 after making a move in one direction. And that stopping ability is something that he really
09:18 struggles with. - Yeah. And it's one reason we talk about with a guy like Luka Doncic, right?
09:24 His ability to stop, it makes him valuable. His ability to decelerate, you get that motion going
09:29 forward. It's a two-way street and people don't think about that. It's not just the ability to go
09:32 fast, it's how are your brakes? What do your brakes look like when they're stopping? And then
09:37 if you do come down awkwardly, do you know how to fall? And as stupid as that sounds, some guys just
09:44 don't know how to fall. And there've been cases in multiple professional sports, football being a big
09:51 one that guys got to learn how to fall and how to protect themselves when they're taken down. Less
09:56 so in basketball, but we can talk about your landing mechanics and how you come down off,
10:01 are you coming down on two feet, one feet? If someone's underneath you, what are you doing
10:06 to potentially avoid the contact? And not necessarily avoid the contact from shying
10:10 away from getting a foul, but okay, I have had contact. What's that gonna look like as I'm coming
10:16 down? Am I gonna be aware of what's going on or am I just gonna be privy to whatever happens?
10:21 And that can be problematic as well. -