LaVar Ball likes to talk - a lot. He talked a lot while his son Lonzo Ball was starring for the UCLA Bruins. He talked a lot when he said that he wanted his son to only play for the Los Angeles Lakers. He talked a lot leading up to the NBA Draft. And, he is still talking now that the Lakers have taken his son with the second overall pick in the 2017 NBA Draft. His most recent claims are that the Los Angeles Lakers will become a playoff team this year just because they drafted his son.
The LaVar Ball prophesies
LaVar Ball made the bold proclamation right after the Los Angeles Lakers took Lonzo Ball in the first round of the NBA Draft.
According to LaVar, Lonzo will lead the Lakers into the playoffs in his very first year on the team. Of course, Los Angeles head coach Luke Walton just laughed it off as LaVar being LaVar and said he will worry about that when the season starts.
However, LaVar likes to remind people of how he is right a lot of the time. He actually claims that his words willed his son to end up drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers this year. Ball loves to talk so much that he brought on Lonzo Ball and his high school son LeMelo Ball to WWE Monday Night Raw last night and caused quite a scene in his hometown of Los Angeles.
The odds-makers disagree
While LaVar Ball is talking up his son's chances in the NBA - and he already said that Lonzo could be better than Steph Curry as a pro - the odds-makers are warning people to squeal their brakes a little bit.
According to the current betting odds, the Los Angeles Lakers chances of making it to the playoffs in any form is +500 while the odds that they miss the playoffs is -700.
For people who don't understand betting odds, this means that if a person bet $100 that the Lakers would make the playoffs, and Los Angeles made it in, that better would win $500.
If a person bets $100 that Los Angeles would miss the playoffs, they would only win $14.29 if they were right. That means that Las Vegas will pay more if the Los Angeles Lakers make it, meaning they do not expect that to happen in the 2017-18 NBA season.
Interestingly, the Philadelphia 76ers have struggled horribly over the past few seasons and had the first overall pick in the NBA Draft after making a trade with the Boston Celtics.
With their pick, the 76ers chose Markelle Fultz and he joins Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid. With that talent, the 76ers actually are favored to make the playoffs with -125 betting odds. They haven't been to the NBA playoffs since 2011-12.
