LaVar Ball is still making headlines for his crazy quotes. If you’re not familiar with Ball, he’s the father of the basketball playing Ball brothers, Lonzo, LiAngelo, and LaMelo. Lonzo is the oldest and is a freshman point guard at UCLA and a projected first round NBA lottery pick. LiAngelo is a senior and LaMelo a sophomore at Chino Hills High School and they have both already committed to follow their older brother’s footsteps and also attend UCLA.
Their father LaVar has been creating a lot of waves recently by basically taking on the role of “hypeman” for his sons. He has said some pretty outlandish things about his boys and Lonzo in particular since his eldest is about to enter the NBA draft. He’s gone on record and said things like “Lonzo is better than Steph Curry.” Or that in his prime he would beat Michael Jordan in a game of one on one. He’s even stated that Lonzo is the best player in the world including LeBron James, according to NBC Sports.
“To me Zo is the best player in the world. Yes, even better than all-stars LeBron James and Russell Westbrook. I don’t know if he can beat them one on one, But I know he can beat them five on five.”
Steve Kerr doesn’t think LaVar Ball is doing his sons any favors with his recent “outlandish” remarks. https://t.co/Yd6ypG7dhg pic.twitter.com/yr9tGjHszH
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) March 17, 2017
LaVar Ball even recently got into it with NBA legend Charles Barkley and now the two are constantly feuding with each other. Barkley roasted Ball on national television when he brought up Ball’s scoring average of two points a game in college and even challenged Ball to a game of one on one saying this, “I’m too old and fat to play basketball, but I’ll challenge Mr. Ball to a one-on-one. I don’t even know how old he is. He’s gotta be around my age. But ain’t no guy who averaged two points per game can beat me one on one. I’m positive of that. I think he just likes the attention. They probably weren’t interviewing guys who averaged two points per game in college, so now he’s getting his interviews, and everybody is going to put him on because he says catchy stuff.”
Ball’s response was this, “He wants to play one-and-one and all this, and he says I averaged two points, ‘Who cares? I know he don’t want to play one-on-one because he’s too big. He better stay behind that TNT thing… and eat them doughnuts.”
Charles Barkley gets some help from Kenny Smith to take another shot at LaVar Ball. https://t.co/HKvjGWO58J pic.twitter.com/btbdHZJXOS
— theScore (@theScore) March 19, 2017
Ball has been a man on a mission trying to promote his sons and get them a billion dollar shoe deal for their Big Baller Brand. No really, a BILLION DOLLARS! Just about everything he says goes viral and it’s extremely entertaining, to say the least. His latest jab is at Lonzo’s biggest competition for the number one overall pick in the draft, Washington point guard Markelle Fultz. He said this to TMZ sports:
“If you got a kid that makes everybody better, you mean to tell me you wouldn’t take him over a guy that’s averaging 40 points but the team’s losing? If you wanna winner, you pick my boy. Look what he did to UCLA. They 15-17 last year. You bring one dude and change the culture, that’s what you want. He’s going to go to the Lakers. Watch. The Lakers gonna get that ball, and then they gonna get that Ball.”
Two terms that “don’t mix — LaVar Ball and shut up”: how the three Ball brothers came to rule in basketball https://t.co/8uVLTjx17f pic.twitter.com/D76kpepcNw
— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 19, 2017
He even went on to say that Markelle Fultz “sucks” as the number one overall pick. Fultz averaged over 23 points per game but his team finished with a 9-22 record and resulted in the firing of longtime Huskies coach Lorenzo Romar.
LaVar Ball is a walking soundbite and many people believe he is putting unfair pressure on his sons because of the things he says. One thing that’s for sure is that as long as they are playing basketball he isn’t going away anytime soon. Let the drama begin.
[Featured Image by Mark J. Terrill/AP Images]
