Once upon a time a man named LaVar Ball was a jock. Pretty good, as the averages go, making it to college and getting a (short) look by the pros. Nah, not good enough. And he sired three sons along the way.
Recently, dear LaVar has said his sons, ahem, potential, was worth -- wait for it -- a BILLION dollars. Of course, nobody, especially the movers and shakers in athletics took him seriously. Far from it. Even the major shoe and apparel companies weren't willing to enlist his boys as clients and give them freebies, let alone mega-bucks.
LaVar was unhappy, so he founded his own company. The Big Baller brand. You have to give the man credit for having large cajones indeed by daring to introduce such a laughable concept. Pity he seems to remain woefully short in the firing cranial neurons department.
True, like the late Mohammed Ali, such black and racially slanted bluster will always get its followers. Keep talking smack, no matter how ridiculous, and the fools will look up to you as some sort of hero. Some still even maintain Ali was the "greatest" of all time. That is utterly absurd. He was defeated by Joe Frazier, beaten up by Ken Norton, who was robbed of an obvious win in their rematch, and even lost to Leon Spinks. LEON SPINKS!! In his later years, Ali was absolutely destroyed by Larry Holmes, before he finally whimpered out with a loss to Trevor Berbick. Six defeats, many of them convincingly so, is hardly the stuff of "greatest".
But back to the Ball family.
Daddy's oldest son Lonzo was predictably taken high in the draft by the LA Lakers. Sure, he's still a rookie, but so far he has some rather impressive stats as well. As in the worst shooting percentage in the entire league. Ditto for free throws. His foul shot attempts more closely resemble that of klutzes like Shaq, Wilt, or the Detroit Pistons' Andre Drummond than that of your usual run up and down the court guard. Is dear Lonzo a bust yet? Maybe not, but he certainly appears headed in that direction.
And now dad has pulled his second son, one LiAngelo, out of UCLA, a premier basketball program, before he's even played an official game for them. Remember, dear LiAngelo got busted in China for being a common thief. Dad thinks the prudent thing to do is take LiAngelo out of any chance at a higher education, so he can train for his "future" NBA career.
That would seem to beg a question. What team in their right mind would draft this kid if he got bounced out of college before ever playing a game, and with the circus daddy would surely bring to town if an NBA team took a chance of him? Good luck with that.
There appears to be one more Ball child still in the high school pipeline. What's his name again? LiAbility? LaCivious? LeThug waiting to happen? Beats me.
But if he came from the same daddy and even remotely wants to follow in his diddy-bopping, trash-talking footsteps as to the litany of the absurd and vastly self-overrated, then his chances of success in a sane world probably aren't very good either.
Here's an idea. Keep him out of China, or any other foreign country. Couldn't hurt.
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