Donatas Urbonas: LiAngelo and LaMelo Ball will visit Lithuania on JBA International tour in October. According to sources, on October 1st they will play in Alytus vs Dzukija (1st division team) and on October 4th vs Sintek in Jonava (2nd division).
LaMelo Ball Rumors
But the brothers weren’t able to live up to the incredible hype. LiAngelo Ball averaged 12.6 points in 14 games, but ended up sidelined with an ankle injury. LaMelo Ball saw his playing time decrease as the season went on and ended up averaging 6.5 points in eight games. “The most disappointing fact was that they had no inner drive to become better,” Seskus said. “And when they saw it was going nowhere, they started destroying the club, not paying out prize money to the Big Baller Brand tournament winners, etc.”
LiAngelo Ball will play with one of his brothers on a Los Angeles basketball franchise. Unfortunately, it’s not Lonzo, it’s not the Los Angeles Lakers and it’s not in the NBA. LiAngelo will be a part of the Los Angeles Ballers in his dad LaVar’s JBA, where he’ll team up with younger sibling LaMelo: The middle Ball brother said he just wants to win and is “trying to get better every day” after he went undrafted in the NBA.
To some, LaVar Ball’s boasts about Lonzo Ball being better than Stephen Curry, LiAngelo Ball being the best shooting guard in the 2018 NBA draft and LaMelo Ball being the best thing since sliced bread (in so many words) may seem nauseating. To Hall of Famer Gary Payton—whose own son, Gary Payton II, played with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2017-18—the Big Baller Brand CEO is merely doing his best to support his sons, as is his wont. “This kid came out of UCLA, and his father put him up here, which his father should’ve done. That’s a father, whatever it wants to do, that’s a father who wants to market his son,” Payton said during an appearance on FS1’s “Undisputed.” “He markets all his sons. That’s what he should do. I don’t care. He does it the way that people don’t like it. So what? That’s him.”
Ed O’Bannon and Earl Watson believe that the Big Baller Brand eight-team Junior Basketball Association, which starts on June 21, will give kids who might not have been able to play in college an alternative way to pursue their dreams. LaMelo Ball will play on the Los Angeles squad. “They are part of a team and they are going to get paid and they get to represent the name on the jersey and name on the back,” said O’Bannon, who along with Watson is on the JBA advisory board. “The time for this league was well overdue. I love the fact that they aren’t blue chippers [that were recruited] and the fact that they have been given up on or maybe they didn’t have the grades [for college], whatever the situation is, they are here now and they will make the most of this great opportunity.”
The Big Baller Brand’s unveiling of LaMelo Ball’s “Melo Ball 1” shoe could turn out to be a game-changer in more ways than one. As LaVar Ball explained to a staffer at the Professional Basketball Combine in Florida—where LiAngelo Ball is due to audition on Wednesday—Melo becoming the first high-school kid with his own signature basketball shoe could spark NBA players, most of whom don’t have their own kicks, to seek out their own silhouettes. “Everybody gonna start going like this, ‘You know what? I want my own damn shoe,’” the Ballfather explained. “If I have Melo come out at 16 years old in high school with a shoe, I make all the NBA players look at Nike and Adidas and be like, ‘Where’s my signature shoe?’”
Kyle Kuzma’s trip to Atlanta is the gift that keeps on giving—especially as far as the Los Angeles Lakers Troll Wars are concerned. When asked who he would start, cut and bench for his squad in the popular multiplayer game “Fortnite,” Kuz chose fellow rookie Josh Hart for the first of those designations and saved the last two for Lonzo and LaMelo Ball. “I’m gonna cut Lonzo because he’s played with my little brother before and he’s told me that he’s terrible,” Kuzma said. “And Melo is the bench. I’m guessing Melo is second because he’s in Lithuania right now and there’s nothing else to do but video games.”
