Junior Basketball Association: The Future of Basketball?
LaVar Ball, father of Lonzo, LiAngelo, and LaMelo Ball is a businessman, who wants to change the game of basketball. His oldest son Lonzo Ball, is the starting point guard for the Los Angeles Lakers, currently in his rookie season. He was drafted in 2017 as the second overall pick. LaVar made extraordinary claims about Lonzo saying, “Lonzo is better than Steph Curry right now” and “to me Zo is the best player in the world.”
Lonzo went to Chino Hills High School, and then attended college at UCLA for his freshman year. While at UCLA for one season, he led the entire nation in assists with a remarkable 274, which broke the UCLA record for assists in a single season. He was also awarded the Wayman Tisdale Award, which is given to the best freshman of the year.
LaVar’s other two sons, LiAngelo and LaMelo Ball currently play in Lithuania, on BC Vytautas, in hopes of getting to the NBA by playing overseas.
On December 20, 2017, LaVar announced he would launch a league for nationally ranked players who graduated from high school, but do not want to pursue going to college. The league will be called the Junior Basketball Association, which will be fully funded by Big Baller Brand and will pay the lower ranked players a salary of $3,000 a month and the best players $10,000 a month.
He hopes for 80 players that will fill 10 teams. LaVar told ESPN that, “Getting these players will be easy. This is giving guys a chance to get a jump start on their career, to be seen by pro scouts; and we’re going to pay them, because someone has to pay these kids.”
This league is planned to launch summer of 2018, but there has been a lot of controversy about how it could potentially ruin college basketball and the purpose of a D league in the NBA.
People are skeptical about LaVar and where he will get all the money to pay the players, coaches, and for the arenas used for the games.
This league theoretically could work, but it will take a lot of funding, and it will have to prove to the players that want to play, that it will get them to the NBA.
