Controversy seems like it’s just about the only thing that’s Ball in the Family.
LaMelo Ball’s Spire Institute pulled out of the famed Hoophall Classic at the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame after the tournament refused an outside consultant’s request for a $10,000 appearance fee, according to a report.
The request came from Alan Foster, Forbes reported, a friend of LaVarr Ball who acts as Big Baller Brand’s business manager.
Every year the Hoophall Classic serves as a platform for some of high school basketball’s most talented players. Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant and Anthony Davis, among others, have all played at the event in Springfield, Mass.
Tournament organizer Greg Procino said it was the first time anyone had asked for such a fee.
“The school/program did not request money,” Procino told Forbes in an email. “An outside ‘consultant’ who requested the change in terms did have certain financial requests. We did not pay them to participate and Spire decided not to honor the original agreement for Hoophall Classic.”
High school teams typically are compensated for travel and hotel expenses, but not an outright payment, the report said.
The Spire Institute, which is located in Ohio, will be replaced at the tournament with New Jersey’s The Patrick School.
Jeff Orloff, Spire’s chief operating officer, told Forbes the request for an appearance fee was being investigated.
“We have not and did not and will not ask anybody to pay us to play,” he said. “We’re not represented by Big Baller Brand in any way so any conversation or deal outside of anything I would have done, we’re not involved with. So if there was a conversation to anybody representing that they were Spire and wanted to be paid, we had nothing to do with it.”
Ball’s stint at Spire, his second high school, has been a mess from the start. Several rival schools have canceled games over concerns about eligibility because of his time playing professionally in Lithuania, though the Ball family claims he was never actually paid.
The status of Ball’s NCAA eligibility remains unclear.