Back in March, the father of Number 2 overall NBA Draft pick Lonzo Ball, LaVar Ball, announced his particular brand of outlandishness to the world when he said “Back in my day I would kill Micheal Jordan one on one”. Since then, LaVar has continued spouting off, with his comments ranging from amusing to nonsensical to patently offensive. His penchant for talking has allowed for him to appear on WWE Raw as well as drawn the ire of Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, and finally a response from His Airness himself, Micheal Jordan. While Jordan’s response of “I don’t think he could beat me if I was one-legged” is funny, it was completely unnecessary. Jordan noted this earlier in the interview when he rattled off LaVar’s well-known college stats of 2.2 points per game which even without his other pedestrian statistics (2.3 rebounds per contest, an atrocious 45.0 percent from the free throw line) shows that at best he was a bench-warmer while Jordan was winning MVP’s and NBA Finals.
The kicker in this is that by responding to five-month-old comments, LaVar is getting exactly what he wants, more publicity (the fact that I am writing about this is not assisting the possible descent into anonymity). This publicity also comes at an opportune moment for LaVar after his behavior this week at the Adidas Uprising Summer Championships had caused ESPN analyst Jay Bilas to call him “a misogynistic buffoon”. During this Amateur Athletic Union event, in which he was coaching his youngest son LaMelo he insulted a female official over her perceived competency and her body weight which is unacceptable in any field of play particularly when working with teenagers or children. His tantrums also saw him rack up multiple technical fouls leading to forfeits by his team, but none of that will matter on the Big Baller Brand’s social media machine today after His Airness blew the drama down the road a bit.
