With LaMelo Ball traded away, who becomes the new face of Charlotte sports?
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You can argue about the merits of former Charlotte Hornet LaMelo Ball all you like — and I would argue that the team never made the playoffs in his six seasons, that he was injury-prone and that the Hornets are going to be better off in the long term without him.
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You may disagree. In fact, many of you do. But what we can all agree on is that LaMelo was the face of Charlotte sports for all of his six years here, and that title is now open for consideration.
Ball’s rise coincided neatly with Cam Newton’s fall. Newton was undeniably the face of Charlotte sports from the day he was drafted in 2011 until the year his career began to disintegrate due to injuries, in 2019. But he had moved on from the Panthers and was playing quarterback for New England in 2020, and that was the same year Ball got drafted by Charlotte.
And Ball — thanks largely to the attention-getting antics of his father LaVar Ball, who was briefly a Panther himself — was a bona fide social media star by the time he got to Charlotte.
LaMelo’s profile only increased in the Queen City (when he wasn’t hurt) because his game is made for ESPN. It’s all about extraordinary highlights: alley oops and slithery layups and 28-foot, one-legged stepback threes (he attempted the most threes in the NBA last season). It’s not about defense, but defense doesn’t make the 11 p.m. SportsCenter anyway.
For me, while LaMelo and Cam were both highlight staples for years and the favorite player of every 13-year-old boy in the Charlotte area, they were very different in terms of their impact.
Newton was the true big baller in that duo. He got the Panthers to the Super Bowl in 2015. He was the NFL’s Most Valuable Player that season, becoming the only Panther to ever win that honor. He also led the Panthers to the playoffs in 2013, 2014 and 2017. The dirty work he would do on a fourth-and-1 to get a single yard, sacrificing parts of his body to do it, had to be seen to be believed.
Ball, on the other hand, threw incredible passes (you could argue that he was more accurate than Newton, in fact). But he also never really won here. Yes, he didn’t have a great supporting cast for a lot of those six years, but he also didn’t elevate the team the way the best players can.
The final month or so of last season was the closest Ball came to consistent greatness, but even then the Hornets fell one game short of the playoffs.
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I trusted Newton in the clutch was going to get it done. I never quite trusted Ball.
In any case, Ball is gone now, traded to Minnesota Thursday in a blockbuster deal.
So who should the new face of Charlotte sports be?
You could argue for Kon Knueppel, who led the NBA in made three-pointers last season, but I don’t think he’s done enough yet. You could argue for Brandon Miller, the Hornets’ scoring machine who has the talent to be an all-star. You could make a case for a NASCAR driver or two, or even for high-profile Panther defenders like Derrick Brown or Jaycee Horn.
But I think the answer is a simple one:
It’s Carolina Panthers quarterback Bryce Young.
Bryce will never be as glitzy as Cam or LaMelo. But he did direct the Panthers to the playoffs last season, the first time since 2017 they had made it. He’s become an extremely clutch player, leading game-winning drives in six of Carolina’s eight wins last season.
Young is also still only 24 years old and he’s going to be here a while. A former Heisman Trophy winner and No. 1 overall draft pick, he’s already under contract through the 2027 season. It’d be a shock if the Panthers don’t extend him well beyond that.
If you’ve ever heard a Young press conference, you know what he’d say to the idea of being the face of Charlotte sports: He would be “super grateful” for people thinking of him that way, but he would also say it doesn’t matter a bit. That only the work matters, and he’s focusing on the regular-season opener, etc., etc.
That’s fine. You don’t have to be flashy to have that title. But it sure does help if you win a lot of games. Young hasn’t done that yet, but the potential is there.
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With LaMelo Ball gone, Bryce Young is the new face of Charlotte sports.
