Ryan YoungStaff writerTue, February 3, 2026 at 2:03 AM UTC·2 min readCharlotte Hornets coach Charles Lee knows this is completely on him.
Lee collided with Hornets star LaMelo Ball during their 102-95 win over the New Orleans Pelicans on Monday afternoon in what was a scary moment near the scorer’s table. Lee and Ball slammed directly into each other head first while trying to grab a ball that was going out of bounds, which sent Ball to the court hard grabbing his head. Lee looked pretty banged up, too.
Ball went to the locker room briefly after that, but ended up returning to the game normally.
“I took a play off, and you’re not supposed to take any plays off, and I thought the ball was going out of bounds,” Lee said. “I was gonna save it from going into the stands, and he was going to save the ball. We went head-to-head.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“Credit to him, he didn’t yell at me too bad. I apologized, obviously.”
Ball ended up finishing with a team-high 24 points and eight rebounds, and he helped the Hornets rally in the fourth quarter to grab the narrow win at the Spectrum Center. That win, their seventh straight, pushed the Hornets to 23-28 on the season.
“Great job of him responding to a foolish coach,” Lee said.
Lee is in his second season with the Hornets this year, which marks his first head coaching job in the league after spending a decade as an assistant with various teams.
Ball has averaged 19 points and 7.6 assists per game this season, his sixth in the league. The Hornets selected the 24-year-old with the No. 3 overall pick in 2020, and he’s currently in the second year of a five-year, $203.8 million deal.
Ball, though he made fun of Lee a little bit after the incident, had no hard feelings.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“It’s all good, though,” Ball said. “It’s all love.”
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