Without even so much as consulting with the coaching staff, LaVar Ball has announced that he is pulling his son, LiAngelo, from UCLA and will be training him alone in preparation for the NBA draft in June. Lavar's biggest frustration came from his view that the school was punishing his son unfairly and hurting his draft chances.
Claiming that the coaches didn't keep him informed enough, Lavar justified pulling his son from the team without communication. This definitely surprised the administration at UCLA, including head coach Steve Alford, but they didn't seem to mind very much.
It was widely reported that LiAngelo was in over his head on the team and was going to be a bench player at best.
This feels like déjà vu
If this whole situation feels like it has happened before, that's because it has. Lavar pulled the same stunt earlier this season after disagreements with LaMelo's high school coach at Chino Hills. When the new coach declared that they would be playing team ball and that the offense wouldn't just be "The LaMelo Show, Lavar pulled his son from school and declared that he would be home schooled for his final two years before college.
The big difference between LaMelo and LiAngelo is that LaMelo was actually scouted and is highly ranked. He was projected to be a top 10 point guard in the 2019 class, while LiAngelo has recently been described by NBA scouts as not on their radars.
This was also before the shoplifting fiasco.
What does this mean for LaMelo?
The youngest of the three Ball kid's, LaMelo, will likely never set foot on the UCLA campus after all of this.
Despite committing to the school as a sophomore, LaMelo had his own issues that may have prevented his eligibility. Lavar recently announced that the baby of the family would be getting his own signature shoe.
This is a likely violation of NCAA rules and it was going to be interesting to see if he would have been eligible at all.
It's tough to say at this point how all of this will affect his future draft stock. Without any college competition, will teams really want to draft a kid who was home schooled and trained by dad? It's hard to believe that he will be getting better support for training and development than he would at a premier division 1 school.
What about LiAngelo?
The hard truth was that LiAngelo was only at UCLA because of his older brother Lonzo. To secure Lonzo's services for his one and done year, Lavar negotiated a deal to have all three of his sons commit to the Bruins. While UCLA did have interest in youngest son LaMelo, there was virtually no interest in having LiAngelo on the team. His arrest made for an easy reason to suspend him indefinitely and keep him away from the team as long as possible.
Now that he is officially done at UCLA, his professional prospects look even dimmer. One NBA scout literally laughed at the idea that LiAngelo would be drafted. His age and skill set aren't going to land him high on European teams' radars either.
Playing in China is not going to be an option for obvious reasons.
LiAngelo's best bet would be to enroll at a mid-major school and try to turn things around on the court. Steph Curry showed what can be achieved with dominating the mid major competition as it got him his foot in the door with the NBA, which he more than deserved. One thing is for sure, training with dad won't net him a better opportunity than he just wasted at UCLA.
