Every year the National Basketball Association drafts new players into the league, they are known as rookies. Usually there is not much hype and noise surrounding these rookies, but this year was something different. Lonzo Ball a Point Guard from UCLA had been playing very well and people were calling him the best College Basketball player in a long time. Once Lonzo started gaining more and more popularity as the season progressed his dad LaVar Ball started making very alarming and controversial comments regarding his son’s future, in the NBA and how his son was so superior than already superstars in the professional league. This is what began one of the most controversial and hot topics of the sports industry in 2017.
Lonzo was already playing very well but before his father’s comments, a lot of events happened that made the Ball Family get so much of the spotlight in American Sports. Back in February of this year, LaMelo Ball the youngest of the three brothers of the Ball family, Lonzo being the oldest, LiAngelo the one in the middle, and LaMelo the youngest one. Melo was playing a game for his ex High School team, Chino Hills on that night LaMelo exploded and scored 92 points in one game which is really impressive considering he is just in High School. Meanwhile Lonzo was playing really well and was ready to play with UCLA on the “march madness” competition which is one of the most watched sporting events in america. Shortly after increasing their popularity by a large margin, LaVar Ball made two of his most biggest statements that made him and his family the Kardashians of Sports.
LaVar decided to go after the superstars of the NBA and said that Lonzo(soon to be rookie) is better than 2 time league MVP Stephen Curry, this caused negative attention towards LaVar and his family because comparing Lonzo to a 2 time MVP player that has been one of the icons of the league for some time now was disrespectful but saying that Lonzo is better than him really created an outrage in the social media and made Sports Shows in ESPN talk about him every day most notably “First Take” one of ESPN’S best talk shows right now. “Ill tell you right now he’s better than Steph Curry to me.” One would think after getting so much heat from a very subjective comment like LaVar’s you would never say anything like that again, however later that month LaVar made the whole situation even more interesting by stating that in his prime he would beat Michael Jordan on a 1v1 game of Basketball, Michael Jordan is considered by many professionals and fans of the sport across the world to be the greatest basketball player to ever live, “Back in my heyday, I would kill Michael Jordan one on one.” This made LaVar a marketing genius and made his family and himself very rich and popular.
In 2016 LaVar Ball founded a clothing and shoe company called BBB short for Big Baller Brand the company didn’t have as much success in 2016 because of its lack of popularity but 2017 changed everything for the company due to all of the noise the Ball family gained this year the company finally had a chance to increase their profit margins and sell a lot of products. People were ready to buy the most anticipated shoes of the soon to be Laker, Lonzo Ball. The shoes were named “ZO2” and the design of the shoes were beautiful but there was one problem that inevitably caused a lot of extra controversy on the Ball Family, the shoes were priced at around 400 to 500 dollars. With that amount of money you could buy 2 or 3 pair of sneakers with athletes more successful than the Ball Brothers. LaVar Ball then stated that his boys deserve the best shoes and that if you don’t buy the shoes you’re not a “Big Baller”, that quickly became a trend and now people are buying BBB products just to be “Big Ballers”. Isaac Pais a student at Timber Creek high school said that the Ball Family is just smart and they know how to make things entertaining in the sports industry. “ The ball family are a great source of entertainment and are marketing geniuses. LaVar saying controversial things is a marketing tool and the media keeps falling for it every time,” said Pais.
LaVar was right and on June 22 of 2017 Lonzo Ball officially became a Laker being the 2nd pick of the 1st round. Months passed and his father LaVar kept saying his usual quotes of the day talking about how his rookie son will change the league and that he will single handedly carry the Lakers to the playoffs. The NBA season started and the hype was mainly on how Lonzo would perform now that we will finally get to see the young man play. Months have passed since Lonzo made his much anticipated debut and things have not gone as expected for the 20 year old rookie, he has a disappointing 8.7 points per game, 7.0 assists per game and most importantly his team has a win-loss record of 8 wins and 15 losses. Stephen A. Smith one of the most famous journalists in ESPN went as far as to say that Lonzo is looking like a bust and that other rookies should have gotten the attention such as De’aaron Fox, Dennis Smith Jr, Jayson Tatum, and most notably Ben Simmons who is playing his first season with the 76ers due to a injury last year. John Macon III A center for the Timber Creek Wolves this season commented on what he thought about the Ball Family. “Lonzo and his whole family are overrated just look at how bad hes doin this season, he’s a bust.” Bust or no Bust the Ball Family is very good at gaining popularity and having the spotlight on them thats for sure.
