Heading to the 2017 NBA Draft, LaVar Ball was hyping his son, Lozno, the best he could so he could sell him to the Los Angeles Lakers. In doing so, LaVar crossed many lines just to get attention.
He said he would beat Michael Jordan in a game of one-on-one . Ball also claimed that his eldest son is better than Steph Curry . The Big Baller Brand founder also shaded LeBron James by saying that his sons would do better in the NBA than Bron's children.
While MJ and Steph took LaVar's comments in stride, King James didn't appreciate the Ball patriarch talking about his sons.
"He can talk all about his brand, talk about his sons, talk about basketball, talk about me," James told ESPN. "But keep my family out of this. Keep my kids' names out of your mouth. Keep my family out of your mouth. This is dad to dad. It's a problem now."
The NBA monsters didn't have dads who were good basketball players
Back then, LeBron 's sons Bronny and Bryce were just 12 and 9, respectively, and playing AAU basketball. But although they were still very young, both were beginning to catch media attention because of their father. That's when LaVar entered the picture.
"The monsters in the NBA, their dads wasn't that good," Ball said . "They were OK, they were players, but the fact that the old Curry wasn't no All-Star, he wasn't cold. He could shoot the ball, though. Kobe Bryant, his dad wasn't all that, that's why he's such a monster. You got LeBron, it's going to be hard for his kids because they are going to look at them like, 'You got to be just like your dad.'"
Meanwhile, LaVar averaged just 2.2 points per game for Washington State, so although he didn't say it outright, he implied that his sons would have better NBA careers than Bronny and Bryce because he was a bad basketball player. But The King didn't want to get his kids involved in "Big Baller's" sales talk.
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Ball succeeded in bringing Zo to L.A. but LeBron went there too
It was always the Ball patriarch's dream to send all three sons to the Los Angeles Lakers , where he envisioned them winning NBA championships together. To do that, he had to sell them hard. But he couldn't do it without getting the mic. And so he did his best to be controversial by picking on Mike, Steph, and LeBron, among others.
He succeeded in hyping Lonzo as the next Magic Johnson and duped Magic himself into taking Zo with the No.2 overall pick of the 2017 NBA Draft. By doing so, the Lakers bypassed the likes of Jayson Tatum, De'Aaron Fox, Donovan Mitchell, and Bam Adebayo, which proved to be a massive mistake.
During Lonzo's second year in the league, LeBron signed with the Lakers. After they played one season together, Zo ended up getting traded to the New Orleans Pelicans. Whether the 2017 exchange between The Dad and The King had something to do with it is uncertain. However, the Lakers got AD in the trade and won a championship in 2020 without any of LaVar's sons on the team.
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