[FONT="]LaVar Ball made a controversial decision when he decided to pull his youngest son LaMelo out of high school and have his middle son LiAngelo withdraw from UCLA, but the Ball patriarch apparently believes he knows a way he can make sure all three players end up with the Los Angeles Lakers.
[/FONT]While speaking with Lithuanian basketball reporter Donatas Urbonas this week, Ball basically said he is planning to force the Lakers to draft and/or sign both LiAngelo and LaMelo by using Lonzo as leverage.
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</twitterwidget>[FONT="]LaVar’s plan might not be quite as easy to execute as he is making it sound. Lonzo is under team control with the Lakers through the 2021-2022 season. The Lakers have club options for him in 2019 and 2020, and they can make him an unrestricted free agent in 2021 by extending a qualifying offer. If LaVar intends to have Lonzo threaten to leave L.A. should the Lakers not sign the point guard’s brother, he can’t really threaten them with Lonzo’s departure until 2022.[/FONT]
[FONT="]It’s still too early to see if LaMelo will turn into an NBA prospect, but some NBA executives have already been critical of LiAngelo’s game.[/FONT]
[/FONT]While speaking with Lithuanian basketball reporter Donatas Urbonas this week, Ball basically said he is planning to force the Lakers to draft and/or sign both LiAngelo and LaMelo by using Lonzo as leverage.
<twitterwidget class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" id="twitter-widget-0" data-tweet-id="963142648348409857" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 10px auto; padding: 0px; position: static; visibility: visible; display: block; transform: rotate(0deg); width: 500px; max-width: 100%; min-width: 220px;"><article class="MediaCard MediaCard--mediaForward customisable-border" data-scribe="component:card" dir="ltr">View image on Twitter
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</twitterwidget>[FONT="]LaVar’s plan might not be quite as easy to execute as he is making it sound. Lonzo is under team control with the Lakers through the 2021-2022 season. The Lakers have club options for him in 2019 and 2020, and they can make him an unrestricted free agent in 2021 by extending a qualifying offer. If LaVar intends to have Lonzo threaten to leave L.A. should the Lakers not sign the point guard’s brother, he can’t really threaten them with Lonzo’s departure until 2022.[/FONT]
[FONT="]It’s still too early to see if LaMelo will turn into an NBA prospect, but some NBA executives have already been critical of LiAngelo’s game.[/FONT]