Never Lost!
- Robert Zaragoza
- Dec 12, 2017
- 5 min read
Unless you've lived under a rock for the last few months, odds are you have heard of LaVar Ball. Lets see, the likelihood of you crossing paths with the name: his oldest son, Lonzo aka Zo, was the 2nd pick of the Los Angeles Lakers, his youngest son, LaMelo aka Melo, a top high school basketball prospect has his own signature shoe, and his middle son, LiAngelo aka Gelo, is a scholarship player entering famed UCLA. One might say this family combination could easily be the millennial version of the Cosby's, Romano's or Brady Bunch of basketball. Everyone must be swooning over this family blueprint as the prototypical basketball family, yet this might be the most hated family in America. Well, maybe second most hated.
Where did it all go wrong? How can one family be hated so much yet each child be at the pinnacle of their respective level of basketball? The kids' father, LaVar Ball, CEO of their own basketball apparel company, "Big Baller Brand". The Triple B (BBB) is banking off the success of Lonzo Ball (oldest son). During Zo's lone season at UCLA, the proud father during an interview made claims that his son was better than the best shooting guard in the NBA, Steph Curry. Blasphemy! The NBA's golden child is an untouchable figure in the NBA, was being called out! Why are you calling him out? Why?!?! That conversation along with other quotes caught the ear and eye of every microphone and sideline reporter in America. The new trend in sports-reporting was to stick a mic in Papa Ball's face and wind him up and see where he goes! And just like that extra clicks, likes, shares, retweets and outrage! Oh and the love affair with this Big Baller CEO began.
All great love stories have some amazing turns along the way. There have been Kyrie Irving like twists and turns in this one. Yes, LaVar was the new man you love to hate. I could burn a hole in my keyboard with all the quotes by LaVar, so we'll just say he has yet to learn to keep his inner voice, inside. Not only is LaVar loud and braggadocious but his predictions for his son also became prophetic. Speak it into existence! And he did, and then some!
His next turn of events was when he decided to pull his youngest son Melo out of high school prior to his junior year. The plan for this highly touted prospect, that just one season removed from scorching the records for 91 points in a single game, was now to be home-schooled with his main home chore being to focus on basketball full-time. Just months before this unpopular decision, Melo became the first high school player with his own signature basketball shoe, the MB1's by BBB. Lots of ears perked with a sense of saying 'what is LaVar doing now?' Mr. Ball's antics had him become the PT Barnum in this, now, 3-ring circus family. And the Ball's were not quite done yet.
Middle son, Gelo, had one more controversy up his sleeve, literally. On a season trip to China with UCLA, Gelo Ball and two other UCLA players would make world news for being caught shoplifting in a high-end mall. The Ball family was now in the world news in an international travesty according to all the twitter feeds.
This final act even caught the small twitter fingers of our Commander in Tweets, President Donald Trump. Since The Donald was coincidentally in China at the same time as the Bruins, Trump claims that he spoke to the leader of China and requested a quick resolve to this situation. The kids were released and in a press conference they were looking like, well, kids scared straight, thanked Mr. Trump and the US government for all their help.
Disaster averted right, LaVar? LaVar?...
The walking quote machine declined to thank the sitting President's "help" in the matter of his middle son. The world was in an uproar! How could he? He needs to thank him! Plus his son Lonzo isn't playing better than the chef cooking the curry, let alone Steph Curry. You need to be thankful. Hell Nah! was the feeling coming from the Ball Camp. So what ensued was a twitter barrage towards the ungrateful LaVar by President Twitter Fingers.
So now, Lonzo is being labeled a 20-game bust, Melo is out of school, and Gelo is indefinitely suspended to play the UCLA season. Can't get crazier right? The love has to comeback smoothly right? If you believe that, than you must believe that Cookie and Lucious Lyon never gonna argue again after the season finale of Empire.
As the saga continued, LaVar's frustration with UCLA on how they handled the post-shoplifting scandal and not stetting a timetable for Gelo's to return, that did not settle well with LaVar. So what does LaVar do? His version of let me take my Big Baller and go home, LaVar removes Gelo from UCLA and goes and searches for another school to play at.... nope! Sign with an agent and deem yourself a professional, and bring along your little brother! The two non-Laker Ball brothers are now pros and signed with a team in Lithuania. I wonder what a BBB pop-up shop is gonna look like in Lithuania?
Some people see that glass as half empty or half full, LaVar sees that same glass is an ever-flowing glass of milk and a big slice of quadruple layer chocolate cake on the side! Give that guy a fork! Never Lost! LaVar says that all the time and his words are self fulfilling, but one eventually has to believe that he has truly believes he's "never lost"! LaVar is the Silver Surfer of silver linings. As much as the masses try to keep this guy down and as many times as he seems to put his Big Baller Brand shoe in his mouth, he always finds a way to come out the winner at the end. Will his dream of having all his boys on fantasy AAU dream team known to the world as the Los Angeles Lakers be a mere pipe dream or will all the chips fall like LaVar says to make it happen? As of today, all 3 boys are now pro basketball players, but the question remains if the last two will make the jump into the NBA?
In 6-months, LaVar has become a household name and his legacy along with his boys seems to be headed to Jordanesque proportions in 6 more months. LaVar's brain works like a Waze app and traffic, and when trouble is eminent all he does is reroute, and keep heading to the right destination and because of that LaVar Ball always knows the way and just like that, LaVar is never lost!
Comments