Photo via ballislife.com
The Ball Brothers
Imagine a high school basketball team that averages 100 points a game and the three starters are brothers…meet Chino Hills and the Ball brothers (ironic name). There have been cases where trios have been in the same sports league, but none with the swagger and chemistry anywhere close to the three Ball brothers of Chino Hills. The brothers, LaMelo, LiAngelo and Lonzo (In order from youngest to oldest) took the nation by storm after putting on a show verses national Power house Mater Dei (CA) on national TV at the Hoophall Classic this past January. Not only did the trio take down Mater Dei, their team scored 100 points, making many highlight plays in the process. What the Ball brothers do on the court is indescribable. I have never seen anything like them before. They are okay with basically any shot, they always push the ball, they always trap you, and they always make you play their game, and NO ONE will ever beat them at their own game. Sure, do they take a couple of bad shots here or there, of course, but it is completely overshadowed by Lonzo’s 85 foot passes to LaMelo and LiAngelo, and LaMelo’s between the legs alley-oop pass to Lonzo. The Chino Hills play style is like none other. The time when it really hit me that Chino Hills could be the greatest high school team of all time was when I was watching their CIF open division championship game a couple of nights ago against the number three team in the nation Sierra Canyon (Chino Hills is number one). One would think a game between the number one and number three teams in the country would be close, but within four minutes of the game, the score was 22-4 Chino Hills… Against the number three team in the country. But, not only was Chino Hills scoring, they were speeding Sierra Canyon up and not allowing them to find any rhythm offensively. Some fun facts for the Chino Hills team: they have scored 100 points in over half of their games, and they average 100 points per game in 32 minutes. There are nine NBA teams that don’t average 100 points per game in 48 minutes (two more quarters than a high school team). Therefore, if Chino Hills played a 48 minute game like NBA teams they would average 150 points per game, making them the highest scoring NBA team by about 25 points per game (126.48 PPG 81-82 Nuggets). Not only do they break records but the best part is that all the brothers clearly have an unteachable chemistry and they all have fun playing together. You might want to catch a glimpse of the Huskies this year, even though all brothers are committed to UCLA Lonzo could be a one and done player because of his talent, therefore this could be the last time all three brothers all play together on the team. You can also catch Lonzo on ESPN on March 30th at the McDonald’s All-American, I will also be at all the events live tweeting.