To no one’s real surprise, LaMelo Ball is not going to play college basketball.
The youngest and arguably most talented of the Ball brothers, who said earlier this year he planned to play college basketball next season, has decided to play overseas next season and sign a lucrative deal to play with either Australia or China, according to his father, Lavar.
Playing in college was always a long shot anyway. ‘‘I’m going to let you know the plan now, so everybody can just stop,’’ Lavar told Yahoo sports! “In college I already know what they were going to do. Like, ‘We’re going to investigate. We’re not going to let him play until we let him play. We’re not going to let you do all that big mouth talking and then we’re going to hold him back and a whole year will go by.’
‘The G League, I’m not going to let 28, 29- year old dudes tee off on him and try to make a name for himself, so he’s definitely going overseas.’’
The youngest Ball initially put his college eligibility in jeopardy when he and his brother LiiAngelo hired an agent and left high school before their junior and senior years to play a season in Lithuania and then became involved with the Big Baller brand, which produced signature shoes with their names attached and produced a reality show on You Tube.
LaMelo, who was pulled off the Lithuanian club team with his brother, is back in the United States, playing for Spire institute, an elite, unconventional basketball-driven prep school in Ohio that does not play national high school federation schools. Just last month he had spoken to multiple programs like Kansas and USC, which had former and current assistant coaches mentioned in the first of three federal court cases involving corruption in college basketball and the NCAA, which is investigating both football and basketball at Kansas. But neither program apparently has the taste for a prolonged court battle.
