LeBron James chose the ideal setting to fire back at LaVar Ball and warn him to stay out of his family’s business.
After the Cavaliers’ practice at UCLA Tuesday, two days after defeating the Lakers and a day before facing the Nuggets, James addressed the critical comparisons Ball made between his sons, including Bruins stud freshman Lonzo, and James’ own.
“Keep my kids’ name out of your mouth, keep my family out of your mouth,” James told ESPN in defense of his basketball-playing sons, 12-year-old LeBron James Jr. and 9-year-old Bryce Maximus James. “This is dad to dad. It’s a problem now.”
Ball, the outspoken father of one Sweet 16-bound guard and two future Bruins, added to his laundry list of boastful claims in recent weeks when he argued his children have a better shot at professional success than James’ do because they’re not living in the shadow of an NBA superstar.
“The monsters in the NBA, their dads wasn’t that good,” Ball recently said on a podcast with Fox Sports’ Chris Broussard. “They were OK, they was players, but the fact that the old [Dell] Curry wasn’t no All-Star, he wasn’t cold. He could shoot the ball, though. Kobe Bryant, his dad wasn’t all that, that’s why he’s such a monster.
“You got LeBron, it’s going to be hard for his kids because they are going to look at them like, ‘You got to be just like your dad.’ And after a while, that pressure starts sitting on you like, ‘Why do I got to be just like him? What can’t I just be me?’ And then they are going to be like, ‘Aw, you’re soft, you’re not that good.’ Because the expectation is very, very high.”
Ball followed up his unsolicited affront to James’ sons by heaping praise on himself and his family the following week. In a bombastic interview with USA Today, the former college basketball journeyman and Jets practice-squad member claimed, in his prime, he “would kill” Michael Jordan one-on-one. As for his sons, he said they deserve a 10-year shoe deal worth $1 billion sooner rather than later.
While 18-year-old LiAngelo Ball and 15-year-old LaMelo have yet to show what they can do on the college stage, LaVar Ball is convinced his eldest son already is better than Steph Curry.
“Steph is 6-2, 6-3. My boy is 6-7. ’Zo is faster than Steph and he jumps higher,” Ball said. “If Steph had to guard Lonzo one-on-one, he couldn’t hold Lonzo. I can’t wait for the first game they play together in the NBA. Then, when my son beats him, then what?’’
It’s not Lonzo, UCLA’s scoring machine and a top NBA prospect, James has a problem with — “I actually like his son,” James said. “I like his game.” — but his loud-mouthed, controversy-seeking father.
“He can talk all about his brand, talk about his sons, talk about basketball, talk about me,” James added Tuesday. “But keep my family out of this.”
James shouldn’t have to worry about LeBron Jr., at least, who last summer received verbal scholarship offers from Duke and Kentucky.