I have a simple ball made from quads.(It’s going to be handpainted and animated to roll towards the camera). I would like to UV map this with minimal distortion. what would be the best way? This is my attempt, but I would prefer as little seams as possible.
I think there will be two ways in general.
Of course, different methods are available depending on the purpose of use. 
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Those two criteria are antithetical to each other – you can have minimal distortion or minimal seams, not both. I’d say your example is pretty much the best you can do with minimal seams (scaling the UV islands up to make the most of the space is the only improvement I’d recommend). The two best (IMHO) for minimal distortion are:
That’s the Default Cube with 2 levels of Subdivision and Cast Sphere 1.0 applied (lower poly than yours to make it easier to see, principles are the same). The first image is pretty much the default UV map of the Default Cube, rotated -90.0d and six of the faces moved to the left side (so they can stay the same for both unwraps). The second keeps the equatorial rows of faces mapped the same (pinned for the unwrap), but the seams for the top and bottom faces repositioned.
Here’s the blend file:
20240709_RoundCubesUnwrapped_002.blend (957.3 KB)
@joseph thx again for the image slider. 
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