The Ball Is In Your Court


Why do people keep talking about the Ball family? It’s something I’ve struggled with in recent days, as LaVar Ball has continued to make outlandish claims that the media seems to think is news. Clickbait, one could argue.

Ball, the father of potential top-10 NBA draft pick Lonzo of UCLA, LiAngelo and LaMelo, first grabbed headlines after claiming his eldest son was better than Steph Curry.

“He’s better than Steph Curry to me. Put Steph Curry on UCLA’s team and put my boy on Golden State and see what happens.”

Outrageous and absurd, I know. Saying your son is better than the unanimous MVP from 2015-2016 is beyond crazy. But mind you, he didn’t stop there. LaVar went on to talk about the family’s new brand, Big Baller Brand. Not only did he talk about it, but claimed the family wanted a billion-dollar deal for it. Yes, one billion dollars.

“Lonzo’s going to be the first one drafted with his own brand… ‘That’s our number, a billion, straight out of the gate. And you don’t even have to give it to me all up front. Give us $100 million a year.”

To put this statement into perspective, LeBron James’s newest Nike deal is suspected to be in that dollar range, according to an interview his agent did with GQ. LeBron James or Lonzo Ball? OK, I think we can move on now.

And finally, to this, where LaVar finally put me over the edge with the most ridiculous claim of them all. This time it wasn’t about one of his boys, it was about him telling the USA Today how good he used to be:

“Back in my heyday, I would kill Michael Jordan one-on-one,’’ said Ball. “He cannot stop me one-on-one. He better make every shot ’cause he can’t go around me. He’s not fast enough. And he can only make so many shots outside before I make every bucket under the rim.”

How delusional is this guy? He thinks that he would “kill” the greatest basketball player of all time one-on-one. Please, give me a break. I think Le’Veon Bell said it best on Twitter: “Lavar Ball, in ’88 when you averaged that whole 2 points a game at Washington State, Michael Jordan averaged 35 a game with the Chicago Bulls.”

Now, don’t get me wrong, parents are going to be the biggest advocates for their children in anything they do. That’s the way it should be. But I think teams in the NBA are possibly going to pass on Lonzo in the upcoming draft because they don’t want to deal with LaVar. It’s time for the sports world to move on and stop writing, tweeting, Instagramming and providing the Ball family a platform to boast outlandish, preposterous and ridiculous claims.

OK, I’m done talking about the Ball family now. Thanks for listening.