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Basketball is very good.

Welcome to NBA University. I'm Kevin O'Connor here today as always is our distinguished professor of small ball, Jonathan Charks and our Dean of Basketball video research.

I'm a great guy. How are you guys doing today? Super. Just super duper. Thank you for that.

I'm excited. I can talk to you about to make a single run of the SEC tournament. Talk to some young players. It's always fun.

Do you believe that in your heart? Do you really think that's going to happen? Absolutely not.

Yeah, it's probably not going to happen. Sorry about that, Kyle.

It's springtime. That's hope is in the air. I think that I'm just going to be hopeful. Screw it.

Negativity be damned. We're going to win it. We're going all the way. It's a good time to feel hopeful.

And if this is your first time listening to Ringer NBA University on this show, we focus on the younger players in the league and their situations and the teams they play on.

And so on today's show since it's a halfway point of the season later on, we're going to hand out some midterm grades to a bunch of the younger guys in the league.

We'll talk about the Andreate and Shagal Salisander, James Wiseman and others.

But first for our main topic, we're talking about a rookie who get an A from everybody in the team he plays for.

Let's discuss Lamellabal and the Charlotte Hornets. They're 17 and 18 entering the break.

Smack in the middle of a playoff race in the East with a fun young team with a good little mix of some veterans in there too with Gordon Hayward.

Well, a Maliball. I mean, he's been awesome in his 15 games as a starter.

He's averaging 21 points on 59% true shooting and 45% from three with seven assists and six rebounds per game.

That's all star level production. Kyle, what has stood out to you the most about Lamellabal?

Well, you know, there are some big picture thoughts here about the Hornets that I think we'll get into.

But I mean, just in terms of like him, like specifically the things that have surprised me based on the way I've evaluated him the last couple of years.

His defensive activity and his anticipation has really surprised me mainly the activity part because you can't do one without the other.

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