LaVar Ball

About

LaVar Ball is the father of UCLA basketball player Lonzo Ball and highly-rated high-school prospects LiAngelo and LaMelo Ball. He gained mainstream media attention in the sports word during March of 2017 by saying his children were better basketball players than some top NBA stars and that he could have beaten Michael Jordan in his "heyday."

History

Ball was born on October 23rd, 1968, in Los Angeles, California.^[1] He played both football and basketball in high school, and elected to pursue basketball in college. However, he put up underwhelming numbers at Washington State before transferring to a Division II school. After college, Ball tried out for professional football. Ball made the practice squad of the NFL's New York Jets and Carolina Panthers and played with the London Monarchs of the World League of American Football.

Reputation

Since they were little, LaVar Ball began training his three sons in basketball. His son Lonzo was a popular freshman on the UCLA basketball team in the 2016-2017 season and became a top prospect for the summer's NBA draft. LaVar began commenting on his son's success and NBA chances in early 2017, leading to sports media to begin paying attention to him. On February 15th, TMZ Sports^[2] interviewed LaVar, and LaVar said his son was better than the Golden State Warriors' Steph Curry, one of the biggest stars in the NBA. On the 25th, he said that his son Lonzo will "only play for the Los Angeles Lakers,"^[3] though he later walked back on that comment. On March 13th, he claimed he could have beaten Michael Jordan, arguably the best player of all time one-on-one in his heyday.^[4]

#LavarBallSays

The Jordan comment drew the attention of Twitter, who began sending up Ball's braggadocios claims using the hashtag #LaVarBallSays. The hashtag was started by CBS Sports' Will Brinson,^[5] who made a joke about how LaVar probably thinks he's faster than Olympic gold-medalist Usain Bolt. His tweet gained 131 retweets and 184 favorites.

Many more tweets appeared in the hashtag, and soon even some NBA players began joking with it. The moment was covered by SBNation^[6] the following day.

First Take Appearance

On March 27th, after UCLA was eliminated in the NCAA College Basketball Championship tournament, ESPN booked LaVar and his son Lonzo to be guests on their sports-talk show, First Take. After being such a talking point in the previous weeks, people assumed LaVar would disappear from the spotlight now that his son was not regularly on national television.^[7] However, LaVar entered doing a jagged strut, which inspired another days worth of remixes and memes. One of the most popular tweets compared Ball's strut to the entrance of WWE chairman Vince McMahon (shown below).

Twitter began making jokes about the strut in a series of remix videos that were covered by Complex^[7] and Uproxx.^[8]

LiAngelo Ball's China Arrest

On November 7th, 2017 ESPN^[9] reported that three UCLA basketball players, Cody Riley, Jalen Hill, and Lavar Ball's son Liangelo were arrested in China on suspicion of shoplifting sunglasses from a Louis Vitton store near the UCLA team's hotel. The three did not play in the team's game against Georgia Tech in Shanghai and were directed to stay in the hotel after the team returned home for the next steps. LaVar Ball stated of the case, "he'll be fine. Everyone's making it a big deal. It ain't a big deal."

On November 14th, The Washington Post^[10] reported that President Donald Trump had personally asked Chinese president Xi Jinping to help resolve the cases of the UCLA basketball players. Jinping promised to look into the case and make sure the players were treated fairly and expeditiously. That night, the three players returned to the United States and faced no charges in China.^[11] On the morning of November 15th, Trump tweeted, "Do you think the three UCLA Basketball Players will say thank you President Trump? They were headed for 10 years in jail!" (shown below).

Lavar Ball Response

Following the return of the players, Liangelo Ball and the others thanked Trump for helping.^[12] Lavar Ball, however, did not thank Trump.^[13] This caused Trump to tweet, "Now that the three basketball players are out of China and saved from years in jail, LaVar Ball, the father of LiAngelo, is unaccepting of what I did for his son and that shoplifting is no big deal. I should have left them in jail!"^[14]

On November 20th, Ball appeared on CNN to discuss with Chris Cuomo the situation and his feud with President Trump. Uproxx^[15] called the segment "one of the most insane segments ever broadcast."

Snoop Dogg^[16] stood by Lavar Ball for his comments in a video posted to Instagram. Twitter users responded to the interview with jokes, praise, and distaste for the interview. The Twitter account for the podcast Hoops and Brews tweeted a section of the interview with the caption "LaVar Ball Goes IN on Trump!", gaining over 11,000 retweets and 20,000 likes (shown below).

Twitter user @Schlep23^[17] posted a tweet saying Ball sounded like a fool, gaining 46 retweets (shown below, left). Twitter user @TheClemReport^[18] posted a video of Ball's notable moments from 2017, saying he was still champion (shown below, right).

Trump Dunk

On December 7th, 2017, LaVar Ball tweeted^[19] a gif of an animated Ball playing an animated Donald Trump in basketball. In the animate, Ball knocks Trump down and dunks on him. He captioned the post "#thetrumpdunk #stayinyolane @realDonaldTrump." Within 24 hours, post (shown below) 57,000 retweets and 100,000 likes.

Several media outlets covered the gif, including Uproxx,^[20] CNN,^[21] CBS^[22] and more.

#thetrumpdunk #stayinyolane @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/MEjGptbiuS

— Lavar Ball (@Lavarbigballer) December 7, 2017

Search Interest

External References