Report: LiAngelo Ball will enter G League draft

LiAngelo Ball will sign a general contract with the G League and enter this month's entry draft, sources told The Athletic's Shams Charania.

Ball, listed as a 6-foot-5, 230-pound forward, made five appearances with the Hornets' Las Vegas Summer League team this August, averaging 9.6 points, two rebounds, and 1.6 steals in 17.4 minutes per game. He shot 10-of-29 (34.5%) on 3-pointers.

"I feel like I belong in the league," he told Sports Illustrated's Roderick Boone in August. "But I know I can show more than what I did."

The G League's entry draft is slated for Oct. 23, where the Hornets will have an opportunity to claim the 22-year-old's services with the 26th pick in each of the draft's three rounds.

Like Lonzo Ball, LiAngelo was initially set to play collegiate basketball at UCLA. However, a scandal during a preseason trip to China prior to the start of his freshman year - one in which then-U.S. President Donald Trump infamously involved himself on Ball's behalf - led to his withdrawal from the program in 2017.

Following his departure from the Bruins, LiAngelo and LaMelo Ball wound up playing professionally for Lithuanian side BC Prienai for a season, thus forfeiting their future NCAA eligibility. He also played in a series of exhibition events organized by his family's apparel company, Big Baller Brand.

In the intervening years, Ball reached an agreement to join the G League's Oklahoma City Blue toward the end of the 2019-20 season. However, due to the rapid rise of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, he never actually appeared in a game with the team. Similarly, he signed a preseason deal with the Detroit Pistons in 2020 but was waived prior to seeing the court.