The Los Angeles Lakers are less than two weeks away from selecting their next franchise centerpiece. While most signs indicate that they will draft UCLA guard Lonzo Ball, it’s far from a certainty. That’s not stopping LaVar Ball from working on his next move, however.
Ball has two other sons who play basketball: LiAngelo who is entering his freshman season at UCLA and LaMelo who is still in high school. The elder Ball already has plans for the two, saying they will both be one-and-done players in college and both will be #FutureLakers.
Following via Jeff Goodman of ESPN:
“All my boys are gonna be one-and-done. Gelo (LiAngelo) is going be one-and-done whether he’s good or bad,” LaVar said. “I’m going to put him in the draft, hope they don’t take him. Bring him into the Lakers as a free agent, let him wind up with his brother and watch how good they play together.”
“I’m going to do the same thing with Melo,” LaVar said. “And we get three of the Ball boys on the Lakers together, and we gonna go championship, championship, championship, championship, championship. You think I’m playing. You saw what they did in high school.”
Likening the NBA to high school in any way at all is probably not the smartest thing LaVar has said but then again this is nothing new.
The thing is, Ball might have a chance to make this a reality. According to Goodman, multiple NBA executives have told him that LiAngelo is not on their 2018 draft boards, meaning if he does leave UCLA after one year, he’s likely to be an undrafted free agent. Of course, things can change over the course of the college basketball season, but it’s not promising that several teams are not even considering him as a prospect.
Ball’s insistence on getting Lonzo to the Lakers seems to be working so no one can fault him for trying to speak it into existence for his younger sons as well.
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