@thesportsontap: LaMelo Ball asked a Timberwolves staffer their name on day one. The next day he knew everyone's name in the building. Tim Connelly runs the Minnesota front office, and he told that story on a podcast in August. He pointed out that remembering all those names is not a given at this level. Then he said this. "The consistent opinion was that the guy has no bad days." Connelly framed it against an 82 game season. The late arrivals, the travel, the shootarounds in a half empty building. Bad days are built into the job. Jon Krawczynski covers the team for The Athletic. He sat down with Ball for about ten minutes this fall and came away describing the same thing. "One thing that everyone says is he knows everyone's name in the building," Krawczynski said. He kept going. "I'm talking, everyone, from the janitor to the workout guy to the head of basketball operations." "It doesn't matter if you make millions of dollars in that building or if you're making minimum wage." Ball spent his first six seasons in Charlotte. Over the offseason the Hornets traded him and Josh Green to Minnesota for Naz Reid and a package of draft picks. He arrived with a reputation built mostly out of three word answers at a podium. Krawczynski said that read on him is wrong, and that ten minutes in a room with him is enough to see it. "There's a care factor about him that I think is hidden by the optics of just who he is," Krawczynski said. "There's real substance to him. There's soul to him." On Monday night in Minneapolis he gave the city the basketball version. Ball scored 34 points against the Milwaukee Bucks, his highest total of the season, and Minnesota won 112-100. "This is a person that wants to connect, and he has been anything but flaky, anything but aloof." #NBA #nbabasketball #hoops #timberwolves #twolves

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Wednesday 04 November 2026 02:14:17 GMT