Ball brothers skip their new team's first game for telling reason
The ongoing dumpster fire that is the Ball Family Circus reached a new low in Lithuania’s capital city Friday night.
LiAngelo and LaMelo Ball were supposed to make their debut for Prienai-Birstonas Vytautas in the LKL (Lietuvos Krepsinio Lyga, literally “Lithuanian Basketball League”) against BC Lietuvos Rytas, one of the historically strongest teams in LKL.
So what kept them out of the lineup? Their clown of a father, LaVar, who complained that Rytas wouldn’t allow the reality show cameras for LaVar’s little “Hooping Up with the Kardashians” exercise in social media branding, “Ball in the Family.”
And really, every one of these LaVar Ball stories should come with Dave Barry’s famous catchphrase, “I am not making this up”:
The Ball brothers were supposed to make the trip to Vilnius for today’s game, but remained in Prienai after the opposing team, Lietuvos Rytas, didn’t initially allow the cameras from the Ball reality show in the arena.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) January 6, 2018
This is what LaVar sacrificed the college eligibility of his sons for? Really?
As if that weren’t bad enough, if NBA scouts were supposed to be interested in the comings and goings of Vytautas, it’s not like this team has much going for it in the actual league:
Vytautas, the team in which LaMelo and LiAngelo Ball will join Tuesday, just lost by 57 points to BC Lietuvos Rytas. Final: 113-56.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) January 6, 2018
Rytas, along with Zalgiris Kaunas, essentially form the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers of Baltic basketball, with Neptunas Klaipeda having a surprise run to second place so far this season.
Vytautas is dead last at 4-14 this season; LKL uses a hockey-style “overtime losses” count, but “4-13-1” is still four wins in 18 games, and Vytautas is also 7.8 points per game to the negative in point differential, with an average score of 85-77 in favor of the opponents.
Indeed, if the season ended today, Lithuanian basketball has a promotion and relegation system; Vytautas would find itself in the “National Basketball League” (Nacionaliné Krepsinio Lyga in Lithuanian) next season, a bit like if the NBA had sent the 76ers to the G-League during the “Process” years and called up the Sioux Falls Skyforce.
Which, in turn, invites a whole host of questions.
For one thing, how long are the Prienai-Birstonas brass going to put up with LaVar Ball when they’re trying to save their season and one of their franchise’s major sources of financial support in the form of gate revenue for first-class teams coming to their arena? You’d think that they’d either tell LaVar to shut his gob and politely remind him that his sons are under contract, or else ban him from the arena the way the Lakers tried to diminish his ability to influence the team at Staples Center.
For another, this pokes a huge hole in LaVar’s assertion that playing overseas will help get his sons ready for the NBA. If he cared about his sons and not about his personal brand, he would’ve wanted them on the floor against third-place Rytas, where anything LiAngelo and LaMelo did out on the floor would look like it was actually making an impact in a way that translates to NBA competition. Instead, what’s he supposed to do? Claim that Vytautas lost because they didn’t have the Ball brothers?
And, ultimately, once the boys do play for their team, what are NBA scouts supposed to make of the whole thing, when it’s seeming increasingly unlikely that they’ll have a major role in helping Prienai-Birstonas avoid relegation?
But then again, that’s been LaVar’s modus operandi ever since he found himself in a role where he can’t get by on bombast and his sons’ natural ability.
We’re seeing it in Lonzo’s play in the NBA. Sadly, we may be seeing the ceiling of the younger Ball brothers long before they get to the bright lights of sold-out 20,000-seat hoop palaces stateside. The dreams of the younger sons may be dashed on the rocks of a remote basketball outpost in the former Soviet Union.
And all because of the ego of the worst sports dad since Marv Marinovich.
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