Lonzo Ball—the talented UCLA freshman and potential 1st overall pick in the upcoming NBA Draft—made headlines all year long while hardly fitting a traditional mold.

To basketball purists, his shot is ALL wrong—he crosses his face, his forearm sticks to the side, his release is ugly and unorthodox.

As Bleacher Report journalist Greg Couch explained,

“The shot is so strange that Ball's parents and his coaches at UCLA have met to discuss what to do about it. It might cost him millions of dollars by scaring off NBA teams at the top of the draft. ‘It looks terrible,’ says an executive on an NBA Eastern Conference team.

So Ball attempted to fix it again this past summer when UCLA played a few games in Australia. The result?

‘I did not play very well at all...all the time I was trying to change my shot. It was all off. You've never seen anyone shoot it like me. It comes off the left side. I don't know. I don't know. It still spins the right way. I was just trying to make it more traditional, I guess.’"

Though unconventional in design and delivery, you can’t argue with the results: shooting nearly 56 percent from the floor—42 percent from three, an eye-popping 72 percent from inside the arc.

Fortunately, UCLA’s head coach Steve Alford is a contrarian. “I don't care if you do a figure eight with it," Alford told Ball about his shot. "The prettiest shots are the ones that go in."

"He shoots it better than average, even though it looks terrible," says another NBA executive.

Some things in life defy explanation.

Like a hummingbird whose physiology and mechanics should make it impossible to fly, Ball’s fundamentals should produce a shot that is broke. Nevertheless, hummingbirds fly and Ball makes shots.

Ball presents another reminder to not judge a book by its cover.

Taking it up another notch, I Samuel 16:7 let’s us know that “The Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

We miss out when by choice or conditioning we can’t see beyond our preconceived notions of what "x" should be or do or look like. When we fail to see through to the “heart” of a person we miss out. We miss out on learning who God uniquely crafted them to be, complete with their quirks, creativity, uniquenesses.

When we limit our perception to what can be seen on the outside, we might fail to appreciate the gift of diversity and wind up missing a blessing while also doing a disservice to them, our Creator, and ourselves by pigeon-holing people into a cookie-cutter-culture of conformity.

God uniquely created each of us (Psalm 139:14; Jeremiah 1:5; Genesis 1:27) down to the precise numbers of hair on our heads (Matthew 10:30) for the benefit—not detriment—of mankind as a whole.

Uniquely designed, we’re more than just another face in the crowd, we’re to play to our God-given giftings (staying open to those gifts manifesting themselves in surprising ways), benefit from others’ differences, and lay aside any preconceptions when things don’t quite fit the mold of our set expectations.

Last season, UCLA had a losing record. This year, with virtually the same roster, they have the addition of Lonzo Ball and a chance at a National Championship—unperfect shot, critics, and all.