LaVar Ball is respawning this week to defend his youngest son LaMelo Ball.
The Charlotte Hornets star LaMelo drew widespread backlash with a dirty takedown of Miami Heat counterpart Bam Adebayo during Tuesday’s play-in tournament game (see the video here). While LaMelo was not punished for the incident in the actual game, the NBA retroactively hit LaMelo with a flagrant 2 foul as well as a fine the day afterwards.
In response to the dirty play this week, Nick Wright of FS1 went off on LaMelo. During an episode of “First Things First,” Wright ripped LaMelo by saying, “That young man is a clown and has been a clown forever and will never not be a clown.”
“That young man is a clown, and has been a clown forever and will never not be a clown.”
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) April 15, 2026
– Nick Wright on LaMelo pic.twitter.com/dkAvhqzHem
That led to a rebuttal from LaMelo’s father LaVar. On the latest episode of his “Big Baller Podcast,” LaVar fired right back at Wright.
“We got these folks over here [who] won’t even comment on the game,” said LaVar. “They talking about somebody a clown? Has Nick Wright ever looked in the mirror? I bet you if you look in the dictionary right now, you look up a clown, you gonna see two things. One, it’s gonna somebody with long hair on the sides and a big a– nose. Yep, that’s Nick Wright! A clown in itself. He’s been a clown ever since I’ve known him.”
Here is the full video of LaVar’s remarks (which also included swipes at Jason Whitlock and Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra).
LaVar Ball responds and goes off on Nick Wright for getting personal and calling his son LaMelo Ball a “clown,” and also calls out Erik Spoelstra for making excuses after losing to the Hornets. pic.twitter.com/8RdCfq8Rzn
— The Art Of Dialogue (@ArtOfDialogue_) April 16, 2026
For context, Spoelstra also called out LaMelo following the play-in game, which the Hornets narrowly won in overtime by a 127-126 final score. Spoelstra said that LaMelo should have been thrown out for the “stupid” play.
As for LaVar, he was in the news last year after having to get his foot amputated due to a diabtetes-related infection. But LaVar looked energetic a few months later as he showed off his new prosthetic leg and is clearly still vintage LaVar with his swipes this week at the FS1 personality Wright.
