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Ball brother declares for NBA draft

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LiAngelo Ball, a former UCLA player who currently competes professionally in Lithuania, is ready to return to the United States.

That is, if any NBA team will have him.

LiAngelo, the middle child of LaVar Ball, has declared for the 2018 NBA draft, his agent told Yahoo Sports.

The 19-year-old, who plays for the Lithuanian team Vytautas Prienu, recently submitted his early-entry paperwork to enter the draft.

Ball has averaged 15.7 points and 2.9 rebounds per game in nine first-division Lithuanian league games. The 6-foot-5 guard/forward is currently shooting 45 percent from beyond the arc, according to Yahoo Sports.

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When he returns from Lithuania, it’s expected that Ball will work out for several NBA teams.

In May, he will be part of the Pro Basketball Combine at IMG Academy, giving him another chance to prove himself as an NBA talent.

Ball was a freshman on UCLA’s basketball team until his father pulled him out of school. Of course, he made headlines during his time with UCLA, but not for any reasons that had to do with basketball.

Rather, during a team trip to China, Ball and several of his teammates were detained for shoplifting. They later apologized.

Do you think LiAngelo Ball will be drafted?

Aside from his off-the-court issues, though, many people doubt that Ball will actually get drafted, in part because he was set to be a bench player for UCLA had he stayed with the team.

As noted by Tim Cato of SB Nation, “There is a very short list of players who are drafted despite coming off the bench for their college team, and they usually involve circumstances that don’t apply to Ball.”

Fox Sports 1 host Skip Bayless put it more bluntly, saying Tuesday, “I do not think he is going to get drafted.”

LiAngelo always has been thought of as the weakest NBA prospect of the Ball brothers.

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His older brother, Lonzo, was the second pick in last year’s draft and currently averages 10.2 points and 7.3 assists per game with the Los Angeles Lakers.

Meanwhile, his younger brother, LaMelo, once scored 92 points in a high school game.

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Joe Setyon was a deputy managing editor for The Western Journal who had spent his entire professional career in editing and reporting. He previously worked in Washington, D.C., as an assistant editor/reporter for Reason magazine.
Joe Setyon was deputy managing editor for The Western Journal with several years of copy editing and reporting experience. He graduated with a degree in communication studies from Grove City College, where he served as managing editor of the student-run newspaper. Joe previously worked as an assistant editor/reporter for Reason magazine, a libertarian publication in Washington, D.C., where he covered politics and wrote about government waste and abuse.
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