The Hottest Ticket in SoCal Hoops: What It's Like to Watch LaMelo Ball Live

At the end of the third quarter, when all hope was lost, the loudspeaker in the gym at Rancho Cucamonga High School began playing the theme song to the show Friends.

"So no one told you life was gonna be this way," it says.

It's likely one or two people told Rancho's varsity basketball team that they were going to have a tough task facing Chino Hills High and its star guard LaMelo Ball, fresh off of scoring 92 points by himself the game prior. I couldn't help but chuckle that they were playing this cornball song about sticking together through adversity while the home team was being crushed without any hint of mercy.

With only one loss in the regular season, LaMelo Ball and Chino Hills are used to such scenes of unrestrained basketball carnage. Ball sets the tone for his teammates—an almost loopy casualness that's a sign of both their young age and their relative ability when compared to their adversaries. As such, the atmosphere inside the Rancho Cucamonga gym was closer to a highly scrutinized NBA Summer League game in Las Vegas than the final game of the high school regular season in a sleepy Los Angeles suburb.

There was the typical collection of kids swinging backpacks and using the game merely as a backdrop for their individual social drama and grizzled alumni polishing their rings during timeouts, but there were also people from all across basketball-crazy Southern California that came out just to see the latest athletic product of the Ball family.

Even as the lead swelled to over 40 points, people stayed tied to their seats. It wasn't until Chino Hills emptied their bench that we all thought to get in our cars and make the trek past the miles of tract homes and gas stations that dominate this part of the state. The lines for the taco stand and the bathroom were a breeze to get through, since everyone wanted to be present to witness whatever it was Ball was going to do with the basketball.

Seats were at a premium, so I had to stand the whole game, peering over and through crowds of people who came to see an offensive explosion from Ball. Rather than the standard rah-rah spirit of civic pride that accompanies most prep contests, the regular-season finale felt more like a spirited exhibition. Fans on both sides of the gym cheered every spectacular play, psychically urging LaMelo to flash something we could interpret as greatness.

That he only scored 27 points in a 105-70 victory was a disappointment for anyone who wanted to witness history. Instead, we saw a very raw, very gifted high school kid—with all the eccentricities that come along with that package.

LaMelo plays with the cheeky exuberance that only a teenager can express—a perpetual sly grin on his face, his hands scrunched up inside his jersey like it has a kangaroo pouch. His jumper is casual, idiosyncratic and thoroughly ragged. He has a habit of kicking his right leg like a galloping horse or perturbed John Wick preparing to boot a guy in the face. But as unpleasant as it is to watch, the ball goes in.

What irks people most about his game, though, isn't the karate jumper, but his tendency to snowbird on defense, shading closer and closer to the other end of the floor rather than engage his defensive assignment. 

That relaxed demeanor and youthful glee may just be part of the package when the game comes so easily. Scout.com famously grades him at three stars out of a possible five, below the threshold to be considered a truly elite prospect. You wouldn't know this gauging from the reaction inside the gym. This is a player who lights up crowds with spectacular passes, who has next-level court vision and hits the sort of "how did he do that?" shots that are shared across social media seemingly every day during basketball season.

To the basketball traditionalist, this is sacrilege of the highest order. It's the hoops equivalent of scribbling T-Pain lyrics on your grandma's Bible. It's the Steph Curry/James Harden generation at work—offensive wizards with range who are often defensive liabilities if they match up with their positional opposite. It's a far cry from the pride guys like Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas took in marking their opponents, and it's the kind of thing older fans can't stand.

Ralph Clark, a 73-year-old fan from Claremont, California, with a son who coaches basketball in Hemet, California, struggled with where the game was going. I asked him what he thought of LaMelo's jumper.

"I think it's terrible," Clark said with a grimace.

He asked what I thought of the coaching in the game. Do they have a game plan besides sending the kids out with a pep talk to "play hard" and a mandate to score more points than the other team? If there was, I couldn't see it. I said I just assumed LaMelo, his teammate brother LiAngelo, and the rest of the Chino Hills team were told to express themselves on the court and not given the sort of rigid structure they'll face at big-time college programs like UCLA or Duke.

"With the parenting these boys have, how is he going to do any different?" he asked.

LaVar Bell, the patriarch of this burgeoning basketball dynasty, is a highly visible figure at both Chino Hills games and at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion, where his eldest son Lonzo was playing that same night. Both LaMelo and LiAngelo are committed to UCLA, further cementing the family's connection to Southern California.

"Their family is a good family. Very humble," said Brigette George, a 55-year-old woman from Chino Hills.

Her husband, Kevin, has been friends with LaVar and the Bell family for 17 years.

"When we first moved [to Chino Hills], we both signed up, me and the dad, at LA Fitness," Kevin said. "So he had his boys with him. They were like, five, six years old. He said, 'You see these boys? I'mma make athletes out of 'em.'"

Brigette chimed in: "Didn't he tell you they'd pack stadiums?"

Kevin smiled: "Absolutely."

So far, they're accomplishing their goal. It took me longer to get out of the Rancho Cucamonga High School parking lot than it does to get out of the Staples Center parking lot after an L.A. Clippers game. That sort of attention placed on a 15-year-old kid is considered the ruin of the sport to people like Ralph Clark.

"They're pampered ever since they were in sixth grade,” he said of the modern amateur athlete. Where some people see joy in LaMelo Ball's face when he plays, others see arrogance. "It's a business," Clark continued. "I saw three little kids bring some brand new basketballs up to the coach to see if they could get 'em signed. Didn't get 'em signed."

I got the exact opposite impression from Kevin and Brigitte George: "If you walk up to them and say, 'Will you sign autographs?' they sign the balls, they sign the books. My book was signed by all of them last year. I took pictures with them. I think they're all really humble," said Brigette.

Most pro athletes have to walk the line between confidence and cockiness. How we, as observers of the game, interpret the body language, the facial expressions, the lackadaisical or mechanical jump shots and the cryptic tweets is mostly out of the hands of the player. Take a trip through any NBA locker room and chances are strong that you'll bump into someone who has plenty of reasons to be self-assured: money, access and the physical gifts necessary to succeed at a high level in a professional sport.

"Some of that talent, God has to give you," Brigette said. "And God gave them a whole lot of gifts."

In the fourth quarter, with the outcome of the game long since decided, Chino Hills coach Stephan Gilling gave the nod to his reserves. LaMelo took his seat, and the stands immediately started to empty. The calm smile never left his face, even knowing most of us came to see him put up crazy NBA 2K17 video game numbers and left slightly disappointed.

Bigger gyms, larger crowds and higher stakes are surely in LaMelo's future, but for now, all we could do is speculate how high his ceiling is and whether or not he'll be a superstar. After a brief interlude to wax poetic about J.J. Redick's jumper, I asked Ralph Clark if LaMelo Ball reminded him of any pros: "I watched O.J. Mayo play when he was 15 years old. I think O.J. Mayo was a better player when he was 15."

Whether LaMelo Ball will have the superior NBA career, or an NBA career at all, remains to be seen.