The Timberwolves traded for LaMelo Ball's talent. His ankles are the open question.

The Minnesota Timberwolves acquired LaMelo Ball from the Charlotte Hornets in a four-team trade this offseason, pairing him with Anthony Edwards. The basketball case for the move is straightforward — Ball is a dynamic, high-usage guard. The medical case is more complicated: ankle injuries have defined much of his career, and last season's 72 games played, while a real improvement, is still just one healthy season set against a longer pattern.

The pattern the one good season sits inside

Ball's injuries have been concentrated almost entirely in his ankles, and they've cost him significant time — from 2022 through 2024, he played a combined 58 games across two seasons [s1]. His 2024-25 season ended early when he was shut down for surgery to address a right ankle impingement [s1]. The following season, an effort to protect that newly repaired ankle appears to have shifted load onto the other side: Ball went on to sprain his left ankle [s1]. Across his first five NBA seasons before last year, he played 231 total games — an average of 46.2 games per season, or about 56% of a full 82-game schedule [s1].

Last season broke that pattern: Ball played 72 games, his second-most in any NBA season [s1]. That's a genuinely positive data point, not a footnote — but it's one season against a five-year baseline in the other direction, which is exactly why it reads as encouraging rather than as evidence the underlying issue is resolved.

What Minnesota's own front office is saying

Timberwolves president of basketball operations Tim Connelly reportedly asked Ball directly whether he could commit to playing at least 75 games this coming season. Ball's answer — "hopefully" — was, by the reporting's own characterization, less definitive than Connelly was looking for [s2]. That's a notable exchange for a front office to have on the record before a season even starts: it signals Minnesota traded significant draft capital for Ball with its eyes open to the durability risk, rather than treating last year's 72-game season as proof the issue is behind him.

Why one healthy ankle-injury season doesn't settle the question

Ankle injuries, unlike some other injury categories, don't resolve on a fixed timeline the way a single acute fracture might — repeated ankle trauma can create lasting instability that raises the odds of re-injury, which is part of why a team asking "can you commit to 75 games" is a reasonable question rather than an unfair one. A player coming off ankle surgery who then sprains the opposite ankle, as Ball did, is a pattern that specifically concerns load compensation — the body shifting stress to protect an injured area, sometimes at the expense of the other side. Nothing in the available reporting indicates Ball's ankle issues are structurally resolved as opposed to currently quiet.

What to watch next

Whether Minnesota manages Ball's minutes proactively during the regular season specifically to protect against another ankle setback heading into the playoffs, and whether his games-played total this season lands closer to last year's 72 or to his prior years' sub-50 average — the range between those two outcomes is, by his own front office's framing, still genuinely open.