LaVar Ball continues to enjoy seeing his name in the news, apparently.
Ball, whose son Lonzo is the star player on UCLA and a top NBA prospect, hit back at Charles Barkley on Wednesday after Barkley challenged him to a game of one-on-one following Ball’s claims about being able to beat Michael Jordan.
“Listen, I’m too old and fat to play basketball, but I’ll challenge Mr. Ball to a one-on-one. How about that?” Barkley said, via ESPN. “I don’t even know how old he is — he’s got to be around my age — but no guy who averaged two points a game can beat me at one-on-one. I’m positive of that.”
Ball responded in what is quickly becoming predictable fashion.
“He wants to play one-and-one and all this, and he says I averaged two points, ‘Who cares?'” Ball said. “I know he don’t want to play one-on-one because he’s too big. He better stay behind that TNT thing … and eat them doughnuts.”
Ball said that Barkley used to be his favorite player.
“He’s not my favorite player now. Not because I don’t like him. It’s because my boys are my favorite players now,” Ball said. “He’ll be all right, though. … I’ll send him some Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and he’ll be my friend again.”
Note that Ball doesn’t actually take Barkley up on his offer — he simply makes fun of him. The question is whether Ball actually believes the stuff he says, like this bit about Jordan, or whether he believes there’s no such thing as bad publicity and just says things to keep himself and his family in the spotlight. The fact that Ball didn’t jump at the chance to take on Barkley indicates that it may well be the latter.
