LiAngelo Ball famously went undrafted this year, but he may have been closer to making the NBA than most had thought.
In Sunday’s latest episode of his family’s Facebook show “Ball In The Family,” the middle Ball brother was shown with father LaVar and agent Harrison Gaines in a scene that was filmed before the draft. The scene saw the three men sitting together to discuss LiAngelo’s hopes of being drafted. During the conversation, Gaines said that he had talked to all 30 NBA teams and that, based on the feedback, “the realistic shot” was the Phoenix Suns at No. 59. “Besides that, I think it’s going to be tough,” Gaines added.
A previous episode of the show also revealed that LiAngelo had interviewed with Phoenix. The implication was that the interview went well with the 19-year-old saying, “The Suns one wasn’t really like an interview. I was just talking to them.”
Instead however, Phoenix chose 24-year-old shooting guard George King, a four-year senior at Colorado and a 2018 All-Pac 12 team selection, with the No. 59 pick. LiAngelo’s preferred destination of the Los Angeles Lakers picked in the second round as well at No. 47 overall but also went with a different player at his position in 21-year-old shooting guard Svi Mykhailiuk of Kansas.
LiAngelo additionally failed to make a Summer League roster after going undrafted and has since moved on to putting up absurd stat lines in the Junior Basketball Association (JBA), the league that was founded by his father. He is still very confident that he will make it to the NBA though, and this revelation about the Suns may make that seem like slightly less of a total pipe dream.
