LaVar Ball made a controversial decision when he decided to pull his youngest son LaMelo out of high school and have his middle son LiAngelo withdraw from UCLA, but the Ball patriarch apparently believes he knows a way he can make sure all three players end up with the Los Angeles Lakers.
While speaking with Lithuanian basketball reporter Donatas Urbonas this week, Ball basically said he is planning to force the Lakers to draft and/or sign both LiAngelo and LaMelo by using Lonzo as leverage.
LaVar Ball on his big plan how he's going to bring Lonzo, Melo and Gelo to one NBA team: “Lonzo will be on his 3rd year and I want let every NBA team know, that Lonzo is not going to resign with the Lakers, but will go to any team, that will take all of my three boys.” pic.twitter.com/GErdXjraYU
— Donatas Urbonas (@Urbodo) February 12, 2018
LaVar’s plan might not be quite as easy to execute as he is making it sound. Lonzo is basically under team control with the Lakers through the 2021-2022 season. The Lakers have club options for him in 2019 and 2020, and they can make him an unrestricted free agent in 2021 by extending a qualifying offer. If LaVar intends to have Lonzo threaten to leave L.A. should the Lakers not sign the point guard’s brother, he can’t really threaten them with Lonzo’s departure until 2022.
It’s still too early to see if LaMelo will turn into an NBA prospect, but some NBA executives have already been critical of LiAngelo’s game.
