As you now know, the man, the myth, the legend, LaVar Ball, has decided to pull his two younger sons out of UCLA and Chino Hills High School in Los Angeles in order to have them sign a professional contract overseas.
Somewhat surprisingly, he was successful as both LiAngelo and LaMelo signed a contract with the Lithuanian professional basketball league.
For those who are unaware, Lithuania has quite the basketball tradition as despite its size (it has a similar population to Seattle, Washington) as it has produced 11 NBA players and has won three bronze medals in the Men’s Olympic basketball in 1992, 1996 and 2000.
One of those current players is Jonas Valanciunas of the Toronto Raptors and he offered his advice to the Ball brothers.
Here is an excerpt from the video:
“They’re getting themselves into a great opportunity. Lithuania is beautiful country… We have great basketball history. We’re such a small country, but we have many, many great players. Our basketball school is good., so they chose a really good school. They just gotta work hard — it’s all about working. You can be as good as you can be by working. Talent is one thing, but work you put in, that’s gonna show up.
“If they have any problems, let me know. I can help them out.”
While it is nice of Valanciunas to offer his assistance and advice, I think we all know how this is going to work out for both Ball brothers: not well.
LiAngelo is a mid-level Divison 1 talent in reality that mostly got to sign with UCLA as part of a deal for UCLA to recruit Lonzo and LaMelo is a talented 16-year-old, but he is 160 pounds and far from adulthood or being fully developed and he will struggle mightily playing against grown man in a tough European country who won’t cater to him and are playing for their professional career and livelihood.
Lithuania may be the only professional stop for either LiAngelo or LaMelo.
