We met LaMelo Ball last month when he did his best Steph Curry impression, pulling up and draining a near half court shot in the middle of a game just because. Now, the kid who really could be the next Curry, dropped 92 points in a single game Tuesday night.
The Chino Hills (Calif.) sophomore — yes, SOPHOMORE — led his team to a 146-123 win over Los Osos, a win that came after a 60-game win streak was snapped Sunday at Oak Hill.
Ball’s stat line: 37-for-61 from the field, 7-of-22 from three point range, 11-for-14 from the line — and five rebounds and seven assists. He had 29 points at halftime. 41 of his 92 points came in the fourth quarter.
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.
According to his father, Ball had 29 points at halftime.
“And then he went crazy,” Lavar Ball told ESPN. “I unleashed him.”
Lonzo Ball tweeted, “That’s one way to bounce back after a loss.”
But ESPN also reports not everybody was happy with the performance.
Los Osos coach Dave Smith called it “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. I’ve been coaching for 35 years, and we’ve turned high school athletics into individualism.
This entire scenario reminds me of the time Reggie Miller had a great high school game, only to have it eclipsed by his sister, Cheryl, who scored 105 points in a game that same night.
According to the LA Times, the all-time national high school record for most points in a game came from Danny Heater of Burnsville (W.Va.) when he scored 135 points in 1960.
Josh Helmuth is the editor of Crave Sports
