THE LaMelo show has officially arrived in Wollongong - and who knew the doors inside the Snakepit had locks?
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The people can decide which is the bigger story but the latter was certainly a first for the media regulars at the Pit. Then again, as firsts go, the arrival of the NBA draft aspirant certainly takes the cake.
It's certainly not going to be like any other season. Even with much of the country's basketball media in Melbourne for the Boomers-Team USA matches, it was still triple the number of cameras than the typical media scrum at Hawks training.
For a 17-year-old with 4.8 million followers on social media, it was tiny, certainly not daunting. As interviews go it wasn't the most expansive, he was polite, humble, but brief.
How are you finding Wollongong? "It's real nice, kinda' like home."
What do you think of the beach? "I ain't been to the beach yet, everybody says it's nice though."
How's the attention here compared to home? "It's kinda the same but everybody's real nice."
How have you found your new teammates? "They're real nice guys, I feel we've got good chemistry with them already. Everybody wants to talk, everybody wants to hang out so it's all a great bond."
How have you found the club? "Everybody trains hard. It seems like a winning culture here so that's what we want to do."
Why the decision to forgo the college path? "Overall I felt it was best for me. College was a different route, this just fitted me the best. There's some people that have come here, T-Ferg [Oklahoma City's Terrance Ferguson], it works, they're in the [NBA] so I trust it."
Do you feel like you have a target on your back? "Every time you go out there you want to win, the other players want to go hard, I want to go hard."
What drew you to the Hawks? "It was the best fit team. Coach was good, I got here and I love it. He likes playing fast, I like playing fast so it's good."
Looking forward to working with Aaron Brooks? "Most definitely, he's been in the [NBA], he knows a lot, he'll teach me a lot, I'm excited."
It's not to say he didn't offer much for the cameras, putting on a dunking clinic with Angus Glover once the floor cleared after practice.
It was a fair indication that, for the all the hype that's accompanied his arrival in Wollongong and the NBL, Ball plans to do most of his talking on the floor.
"I'm just here to play basketball, that's mostly me just basketball," he said when asked about the hype.
It won't fill lengthy media reels or columns but it will fill seats. It's also music to the ears of coach Matt Flinn who, amid all the noise, shares the same focus.
"Melo and I have had chats about the fact that it's my job to coach the team, his job is to come out and play and get better," Flinn said.
"All the stuff surrounding that is what it is. It's natural, it's great for the league, our club and the NBL have done great with this next stars program, but we just keep it between the lines.
"LaMelo trains hard, what's impressed me so far is his willingness to pass and that adds to chemistry and it's really fun to play with.
"When he comes into practice we're just all about basketball development. That's my passion, it's his passion, so it's really a match made in heaven."