LaVar Ball (father of UCLA star Lonzo, but his own most notable basketball career accomplishment was averaging 2.2 points a game for Washington State) has long been bragging how he could “kill” Michael Jordan or Charles Barkley in one-on-one, but he actually showed off some of his skills on ESPN’s SportsNation Wednesday. Ball joined the SportsNation panel to discuss a variety of topics, including his comments about Jordan, and when he insisted “Michael Jordan too light in the tail,” Marcellus Wiley challenged him to a one-on-one game (on the conveniently adjacent court in the studio). Here’s the setup to that:
Ball then showed off some moves, including beating Wiley with a jab step after he told him he would:
After Ball scored and got the ball back, though, Wiley stole it from him, and tried his own offensive attempt. He couldn’t get by Ball, but he did drain a long-range turnaround shot. Ball took the ball, blew by him, and dunked on the next possession to make it 2-1, though:
Ball again took the ball afterwards, and beat a tired Wiley with another dunk:
As noted both from someone in studio and on Twitter, Ball’s decision to take the ball both after scoring and after Wiley scored was questionable:
Lmao at LaVar getting the ball when Marcellus scores, then taking winners when he scores. He’s that guy because of course he’s that guy. https://t.co/pQBoJobdEW
— Anthony F. Irwin (@AnthonyIrwinLA) March 15, 2017
But Ball does have some moves, and he’s better at one-on-one than Wiley, a former NFL defensive end but someone with even less of a college basketball career than his own. Don’t expect him to be beating Jordan or Barkley any time soon, but he can beat some non-NBA players. It made for a funny segment, at the least, and one that may inflate Ball’s ego even more.
[Clippit]
