There was a time not so long ago when the sports media world beat to the tune of LaVar Ball’s motormouth, an instrument both rhythmic and irregular, in that it would produce verbal outbursts of unpredictable content – with an utterly predictable consistency. Barely a day could pass in the early-to-mid part of 2017 where Ball, patriarch, promoter, founder of the self-styled Big Baller Brand and, in case we could forget, architect of three guaranteed future NBA superstar careers (his words), did not vocalize his latest thoughts on just about everything. It was a lot of noise, a lot of interviews, a lot of stories and a lot of bluster, but for a while neither the press nor the public could get enough of it. When a national outlet set up a satellite sub-website called Lonzo Wire in 2017, no one was fooled. It was really LaVar Wire, by a different name, a catch-all blog designed to purloin every snippet of news and chatter about one of the biggest personalities in sports. “That’s what he was,” USA TODAY columnist Josh Peter, who covered Ball senior and his boys extensively that summer and even ate breakfast with the family at their California home, told me via telephone. “It was almost every day that something new was coming out of LaVar’s mouth. You had the comments and the boasts and the merchandise. Every day was a new dose of LaVar – then he suddenly fell off the face of the earth. It was like they put him in witness protection.” That was by design, with some believing the self-enforced silence came after then-Los Angeles Lakers President Magic Johnson urged him to tone down the inflammatory remarks. But maybe LaVar’s time is coming again, for there are potentially dramatic developments happening in the world of the Ball family and a missing piece in his grand masterplan is teasing the possibility it might finally fall into place. NBA sages were able to see through the bluster and hype back in the day and accept that yes, while Chicago Bulls guard Lonzo and 2020 No. 3 draft pick LaMelo had bright pro futures, casting middle son LiAngelo as anything more than a fringe prospect was nonsense. That appeared to bear out when LiAngelo went undrafted in 2018 after leaving UCLA following a shoplifting incident on a preseason trip to China. Yet as the NBA’s Summer League kicks into life, LiAngelo is still around and making a splash that few saw coming. Now 22, he says he is wiser and stronger and, on Sunday night showed some real game. He got his chance with the Charlotte Hornets because Hornets players were each allowed to bring one workout partner into training camp. LaMelo brought LiAngelo, and LiAngelo impressed the staff with his ability and attitude in early scrimmages and got himself an invite to Summer League. In front of head coach James Borrego and senior team staff, Ball scored 16 points in 16 minutes against the Portland Trail Blazers, including five 3-pointers in his 2021 NBA Summer League debut. One good Summer League game doesn’t get you a contract, but having previously failed to catch on with the Detroit Pistons and having a G-League stint upended by the pandemic, he is helping his case. Believe it or not – and you can guess who believed it the most – the likelihood of LiAngelo one day playing a real NBA game now skews somewhat positively. “I am very thankful for it, and I am not taking it for granted,” LiAngelo told reporters. LaVar Ball sat courtside in Las Vegas and his approach is different these days. Kind of. Save for the occasional BBB hype video, he makes his point in more subtle ways now, but he still makes them. Beaming from ear to ear, Ball wore a cap with a simple phrase that said all it had to. “I Told You So.” My goodness, what would it look like if all three Ball brothers were in the NBA, two of them on the same team? LaVar has long spoken about how all three will eventually star in the same organization, and was repeatedly laughed off. Suddenly, it doesn’t sound quite so ridiculous. “When all three of them get on the same team it’s going to be the biggest thing in the NBA,” LaVar told the Los Angeles Times in a (now) rare interview earlier this year. “Sellout crowd every night and they gonna get a championship. Because the speed they play with together as grown men is unmatched.” If LiAngelo manages to stick on an NBA squad, perhaps it will be an excuse for LaVar to retire his megaphone. After all, there is no more need to speak something into existence … when it has already come to fruition. Or maybe it will be time to take a well-deserved victory lap, volume fully turned up. “If he puts all three boys in the NBA I think we have to start accepting that maybe he can beat Michael Jordan one-on-one,” joked USA TODAY’s Peter, recalling LaVar’s most notorious brag. “It is easy to find him annoying because of the delivery, but you can’t argue with the kids’ success.” LaVar never cared too much about being annoying. He never cared too much what you thought, as long as you were thinking about him. He never cared too much about the doubters and those who thought he was full of it. Because he told you so, and somehow, remarkably, a lot of it turned out to be right. Here’s what others have said … Jack Maloney, CBS Sports: “He still has a long way to go toward making a roster. If he keeps putting up performances like this, however, he just might earn himself a spot.” Dutch Gaitley, Charlotte Hornets Assistant Coach: “I was thrilled for the kid. For everything with his brothers being starting point guards in the NBA. And for him to come out … I’m thrilled for the kid and for him to have this moment right now. Anybody can have one game. Now, let see, hey can you do it again? Because he’s just put himself in the scouting report.” Roderick Boone, Sports Illustrated: “LiAngelo Ball was in the spotlight, a place he’s apparently all-too-familiar with. Long before he finally entered the game in the second quarter, the buzz reverberating around the gym was unmistakeable. Murmurs were prevalent nearly every time he got a touch in shooting rhythm. The interest he generated is unheard for an undrafted free agent at summer league. But Ball essentially shrugged it off, seemingly unfazed by any of it.” |
