Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Dunce Cap Award: Lavar Ball

Gee, what a shock, eh?

Word got out Monday that the Fred Sanford of stage parents, Lavar Ball, decided to coax son LiAngelo into withdrawing from UCLA. Sorry, Lavar, but that just cost your son his ticket to the NBA.

LiAngelo was serving an indefinite suspension for his part in a shoplifting spree in China last month, and to date had missed 8 games. Younger brother LaMelo is being homeschooled by his self-serving pop, who's only doing things like this for attention. This much we know about Lavar. He's living vicariously through his three boys because he never achieved any semblance of fame of his own as a player several years ago. He has his own reality show, which I think is online-only (Thank God!), but, as a Yahoo! article notes, he believed LiAngelo, like brother Lonzo, would be a 1 year player at UCLA, an example of the mentality in basketball today where players are convinced they have the skills for the pros, even if they're not completely polished.

By all rights, Lonzo should still be at UCLA, but figure his father, and Lord knows who else was in his ears, convinced him he only needed 1 year of school. Wrong. The fact that Lonzo is struggling now with the Lakers proves my point. The Lakers, meanwhile, have started enforcing a rule that restricts media access to players' families (i.e. Lavar), which would reduce the elder Ball's opportunities to extend his 15 minutes of infamy.

LiAngelo, meanwhile, can only enter the NBA next year as an undrafted free agent, as I doubt anyone would be willing to take him and the baggage (Lavar). If Lavar Ball is so obsessed with putting his kids on the Lakers, why doesn't he raise enough capital to buy a stake in the team?

No, instead, we'll give him a Dunce Cap for proving again to the world that he's not the sharpest tool when it comes to parenting.

Meanwhile, Toby Keith's 2001 hit, "I Wanna Talk About Me", describes Lavar's whole agenda in a nutshell......

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