Well, if you can keep humidity up in the enclosure with the bulb, I don't think it would be much of a problem. Ball pythons don't really need back heat, they need more belly heat to be able to digest meals a lot better than getting heat from a bulb. They also do not bask since they are nocturnal snakes and in the wild the almost never see the sun (that's what I read on some website a while back). As for the bulb, it can suck out humidity really fast, which isn't a good thing at all. If a Ball python has low humidity its lungs will crack, making it easier for it to get RI.