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Roundtable: LaVar Ball

Editor’s note: This is part of our sports media roundtable from the Final Four. For the main portion of part two, click here. For part one in our April 10 issue, click here.

ELMORE: This is where the dads speak up, right? I think it’s a little bit of both. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with publicity. But at some point, the pressure is going to get to that young man. I don’t know when because the son is such a cool customer. If the stories about what happened with Lonzo’s high school coach are true, to me, it’s tragic to belittle, to degrade a teacher. I just think the dad’s got two beings on his shoulder — an angel and a devil, and every once in a while the devil shows up.

FORDE: I think the devil shows up too much. It really bothers me that he’s treating his children like commodities instead of like children. Support him, that’s great, but to be so heavy-handed to the coach in high school, and him constantly being in the media … these kids are 18, 17, 16, whatever. Let them reach some level of relative adulthood before you turn them into Big Ballers Inc. It bothers me a lot.

LaVar Ball, father of Lonzo Ball and two UCLA recruits, has been pushing the Big Baller brand.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
WILLIAMS: The first thing I thought about when I saw (LaVar and Lonzo) walk onto the “First Take” set — Lonzo was the adult, and LaVar was the one acting like a kid, high-fiving everybody while Lonzo shook hands. I think it’s a gift and a curse. Spending so much time in grassroots basketball with some of these shoe agencies, from Nike to Adidas to Under Armour, his marketability has raised exponentially. It’s almost like the Kardashians of the college basketball world. Regardless of whether it’s good or bad, we’re still talking about the father and the kid. I think it’s unfortunate for the kid because I think he’s got a target on his back now. Guys like Steph (Curry) and LeBron (James) will take that on personally, and it just adds fuel to the fire. I don’t think the other two kids are going to be as good, but he’s created quite a stir.

O’NEIL: That’s what I worry about — the other two brothers. I feel sorry for them. The bar has been set so high and if you’re not even remotely decent, comparatively, you’re going to be an epic failure because your father has set you up. I also wonder if Lonzo goes into the NBA … you can’t be LaVar Ball, over-involved dad, in the NBA. You’re going to get cut off. You’ve got to stop. Is he capable of that? I don’t think he is. He is a marketing genius. We’re all talking about him and paying attention to what he does. A lot of people are very smart shills and that’s exactly what he is.

WOLKEN: If Lonzo was his only kid, LaVar would essentially disappear once he goes into the NBA. But we’re going to be dealing with him for years because he’s got more kids coming. I think we need to figure out how to handle him, as far as the media. It’s like the same thing with Trump last year, where you ascribe genius like he’s playing three-dimensional chess all the time and manipulating the media just by seeking attention. We need a better strategy for how to deal with, basically, a carnival barker.

Podcast highlights from the discussion:

BOIVIN: But at the expense of his kids. As a parent, that’s where I draw the line. I turn on the TV and I want to watch, but as a parent, my first thought is, “Oh my gosh, how is that affecting his son?” Lonzo has this very stoic presence on the court, but at some point it has to get to him.

ELMORE: Vicarious living has its limits. From a media standpoint, I think we need to rethink how he’s covered. It’s one thing to document it when he makes news. But we can’t make news around him, and that’s where it becomes a problem, when we’re asking his opinion on things that don’t relate to his son. Without his son, who is he?

WILLIAMS: It resonates because there’s a tendency with a lot of the younger kids now, they don’t want to read or watch shows about things that are intellectual. They want to see car crashes. Everybody rubber-necks. So when this car crash is created, there’s a natural tension, which is a shame, but it’s the way of our culture.

ELMORE: Again, once the car is crashed and we document it, now are we ambulance chasers?

O’NEIL: We want to tell the news, not create it, but we keep putting microphones in front of his face and he keeps saying things because that’s who he is. At what point do we decide there’s no reason to put microphones in his face because there’s nothing newsworthy here. He’s probably going to make news if I do, God knows, but there’s no obvious value in it.

FORDE: He has a very limited window of expertise, to his own kid. He doesn’t know about the NBA.

O’NEIL: He doesn’t know about the other kids on the UCLA team, probably.

ELMORE: But from a TV standpoint, a social media standpoint, just having his face out there …

O’NEIL: Of course, click, click, click.

Commentator Len Elmore addresses the LaVar Ball topic while Paola Boivin listens.
Photo by: DARRYL WEBB

CULPEPPER: I do think about Trump whenever I think about him. Is it something in our culture? It’s like the Brits always say, “You all are really good at razzmatazz.” Yeah, I guess that’s what we’re about. The spectacle and the fireworks and … why does this work so well? He gets traffic. It’s in the “most-read” section every time he says something. It kind of reminds me of Richard Williams with Serena and Venus. I used to love running up to him and hearing the next thing he was going to say. But after a while, maybe we have to stop.

FORDE: Is there a LaVar saturation point?

WILLIAMS: It’s going to be interesting to see what happens with LeAngelo because he’s nowhere near the talent of Lonzo. He’s going to be a four-year guy.

ELMORE: The gauntlet has already been thrown down. Have you seen the video of LeBron (mimicking Lonzo’s shot). That’s the beginning of it.

FORDE: I covered the Kentucky-UCLA game and I wrote about De’Aaron Fox just massively outplaying Ball. The comments on the story were just ruthless. People now are excited to see him fail because of what his dad has done.

O’NEIL: We like nothing better than to break down people. That’s what we do as a society: build up somebody and then tear them down, anybody and everybody.

WILLIAMS: We don’t think of them as separate individuals, either. We lump them together, which is so unfortunate because Lonzo, when you talk to him, he doesn’t want anything to do with all of this. He’s very respectful of his father, but he doesn’t seem to gloat.

CULPEPPER: If you’re sitting in an NBA office, does the father give you pause?

ELMORE: I don’t think so. NBA teams deal with distractions. There are worse distractions in the NBA. And if he becomes a real problem, they have means to quiet him down. They can give him a job, they can ban him from the locker room, there are a lot of things they can do on the professional level.

BOIVIN: Here with the Suns, we saw the same thing happen with Amar’e Stoudamire’s mom. The team has people to take care of things and keep them at a distance.

WOLKEN: What’s the market for it?

O’NEIL: If he becomes Steph Curry, sure. No.

WOLKEN: But even with Steph, Under Armour’s stock is down like 40 percent this year.

ELMORE: From a business standpoint, it could be a flash. But I also think you could see the competing companies buy them out. But this thing about wanting $100 million, that’s crazy talk, but that’s what we’ve come to associate with him.

FORDE: Razzmatazz.

WILLIAMS: When you play 82 games, you look for any type of motivation. Guys get tired. But when you come up against a guy you’re fascinated with, you take on that challenge. So if you’re hearing all these things the dad is saying, it becomes extra motivation. Steph Curry, by the way, he’s an assassin, he likes competition, too. Don’t think for a second that maybe the best shooter we’ve ever seen, when he gets a chance to play against Lonzo, isn’t going to take that personally. Or that LeBron isn’t going to take that personally. Or any other guard who’s trying to make it in the league.

WOLKEN: Lonzo just doesn’t seem to be that kind of villain.

WILLIAMS: He’s not.

WOLKEN: But when you put up numbers like a Curry or a Devin Booker, don’t they come to embrace it?

ELMORE: I don’t know. I’ve seen Lonzo face challenges and take them on. He got burned against Fox, but if you watch that game, he shut Malik Monk down. … To what Jay was saying, in the NBA you’re going to have nights where you’re just too tired to chase guys around. But if you have a Lonzo Ball, hey, “This guy is not going to kill me.” Or, “I can make a headline.” That gives you energy.

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