If you’re anything like me, you will have clicked onto this story because the title is too tantalizing to ignore.
Lonzo Ball had his 20th birthday party at Dave & Buster’s? And Jordan Clarkson lost money to his brother, LaMelo Ball, playing Pop-a-Shot? Surely this isn’t real. Surely someone mistakenly aggregated a piece from The Onion.
Nope.
This all actually happened, per Bill Oram of the Southern California News Group:
Clarkson said he lost $200 to LaMelo Ball playing Pop-A-Shot on Sunday. Lonzo rented out @DaveandBusters for his 20th birthday.
— Bill Oram (@billoram) October 30, 2017
So. Many. Questions.
First off: How much doesn’t it cost to rent out a Dave & Buster’s? Lonzo is making around $6.3 million this year, but he’ll lose a lot of that to California taxes and what not. Did he really need to drop six figures on a birthday party? Was the party sponsored by Big Baller Brand, in which case he didn’t have to shell out anything out of pocket?
And, like, is Clarkson ever going to live this down? He’s shooting career-high clips from the field right now. How does he lose at Pop-a-Shot to a 16-year-old? Sure, LaMelo is pegged as an NBA prospect—not as polarizing as Lonzo, but he’s given better prospects than his other brother, LiAngelo Ball. And yes, Pop-a-Shot isn’t a live-game setting.
But…like…imagine being an NBA player…for the Lakers…and getting shafted out of $200 by a teenager who’s no lock to make it to the Association. Maybe you move past it if you play for the Utah Jazz or Atlanta Hawks—or if you’re facing anyone other than a Ball sibling. But Clarkson most definitely has to be catching crap in the locker room for this.
If he’s not, it can mean only one of two things: Pop-a-Shot is a ridiculously difficult game, and his Lakers teammates sympathize, or the rest of us just like reading too much into stupidly awesome anecdotes like this one. (For the record, knowing Clarkson is the one who divulged this intel, we should probably roll with the latter.)
