:LaMelo Ball refutes report that he wants to be traded with one emoji

Charlotte Hornets star guard LaMelo Ball seems to be calling "cap" on a recent report from Kelly Iko of Yahoo Sports that suggested that Ball is frustrated in Charlotte and open to a trade. 

Ball took to Twitter (now X) to respond to the report, and he needed just one emoji to do so: the clown emoji. 

🤡 https://t.co/JFzW4alF0k

Clearly, Ball isn't happy with the reporting, and it's tough to blame him. The author of the report clearly didn't speak to Ball himself, though that doesn't mean that he wasn't given the information by another party. It's entirely possible that someone else told him that Ball was unhappy in Charlotte and wanted a trade -- and that the Hornets were also open to trading the face of the franchise. 

It was truly a bombshell report, so hopefully it was well vetted. It's certainly not the first time that Ball has been mentioned as a potential trade candidate, but such talk has always been speculative. 

Interestingly enough, a league executive recently discussed Ball's trade value, and said that the Hornets guard would likely have a better market than some of the other star guards whose names have popped up in trade rumors. 

"If you're asking me if Trae, Ja and LaMelo all came onto the trade market tomorrow, I think LaMelo would have the best market," the executive said, via ESPN. "But that's all hypothetical right now."

It will be interesting to see what happens in Charlotte moving forward. Is this a "where there's smoke there's fire" situation? Or is Ball's emoji an indication that he's perfectly content in Charlotte? Time will tell.