Ballin’
by rick olivares pic borrowed from the sporting news
I don’t know about you, but I am
having a ball following the interesting life and times of LaVar Ball and the
rest of the Ball family. Yes, LaVar can be standoffish. That might even be an
understatement.
The Sunday sports headlines
featured three stories about the family – one, Philadelphia 76ers Joel Embiid
getting fined for cussing out LaVar Ball; two, Lonzo Ball racking up a triple
double in his second summer league game; and three, WNBA player Elena Delle
Donne figuring in a social media war over tweets about Lonzo Ball and the Big
Baller shoe.
It’s hilarious! If it isn’t
Donald Trump who grabs headlines with his outrageous quotes, it’s LaVar Ball.
Now I am not a Los Angeles Lakers
fan. Not even remotely close. I do though, watch a lot of NBA hoops. And as
many teams as I can. I have to say through, my interest is piqued. I am no crab
tough who wants to see LaVar and his Ball family fail. Good luck, I say. Just
rooting though… here we go – for Embiid’s Philadelphia 76ers.
You can say that all of LaVar’s
proclamations that his son Lonzo will lead the Los Angeles Lakers to the
playoffs and will eventually become a better point guard than Magic Johnson are
heaping loads of pressure on his eldest son and younger children even before
they have played an actual minute of NBA basketball (not the summer league).
For sure.
College hoops isn’t the pros.
Just because one was a star in college that doesn’t mean that he is going to be
all right in the pros. It is different. Way different.
I suspect that opposing players
and teams will try to destroy Lonzo when they play him. The summer league
showcases the rookies and hopefuls and not the veterans. All of the father’s
talk had me thinking of the way Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen destroyed
Toni Kukoc during the 1992 Barcelona Olympics after all the hype heaped on the
Croatian Sensation by the late Chicago Bulls’ General Manager, Jerry Krause.
There is no doubt that Lonzo Ball
has talent. Now if he could top Magic… that remains to be seen. Magic was Magic
even before he played an NBA minute. The way fans took to his defense after
Delle Donne’s Tweet and for the summer league at Las Vegas has been shocking.
No doubt, Laker fans believe in the kid, and even root for the kid.
I caught the recent episode on
WWE’s Monday Night Raw where he walked down the ramp along with sons Lonzo and
LaMelo and took on the Miz. Post-segment, it had me thinking, LaVar Ball is no
different from Paul Heyman when he first introduced Brock Lesnar to a WWE
audience.
Heyman labeled Lesnar as “the
Next Big Thing” and he was. The swath of destruction he cast on the WWE
landscape was so pronounced. Anyone remember the carnage he wrought on Raw on
the night of March 18, 2002? Of course, Lesnar went on to bigger fame as a
fighter with the UFC (although not with Heyman by his side).
I kinda see the same with the
Ball family in the NBA. It is possible that LaVar’s penchant for self-promotion
could be whetting up an appetite for destruction. And to quote Jon Polito’s
Otis Bigelow in the film, “The Rocketeer” – ‘it’s all part of the show.”
Somehow, I think Ball forgets
that the WWE is scripted and well, the Rocketeer is a comic book hero. If Lonzo
doesn’t deliver. If he doesn’t win Rookie of the Year as LaVar predicted (now
let’s not even look beyond that because we have to wait for how the season
plays out), then the air could be sucked out of that ball.
Should that happen, someone will
be bawlin’.
No comments:
Post a Comment