Basketball patriarch LaVar Ball has hit a barrier in terms of his family dynasty’s conquering of the American Dream.
The father of UCLA guard LiAngelo Ball says he plans to withdraw his son from the college. That’s because he has concerns related to the freshman’s indefinite suspension for his participation in a shoplifting incident during the Bruins’ trip to China last month.
The younger Ball, along with fellow freshmen Jalen Hill and Cody Riley, is barred from all team activities as part of the players’ suspension for shoplifting from three high-end stores last month when UCLA opened its season overseas.
LaVar Ball told the Los Angeles Times and ESPN on Monday he’s going to explore other options for LiAngelo because “I’m not going to let him sit back and not practice.”
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Ball, Hill and Riley publicly apologized in prepared statements they read at a campus news conference on November 15.
The elder Ball says he hasn’t spoken to the school about withdrawing his son. “I’m taking him and I’m gone,” he told the Times.
Asked if LiAngelo agreed with the decision, the elder Ball told the Times, “My boy is loyal to me. I tried to let UCLA deal with the process and he should have been playing the next week.”
“We learned today of LiAngelo Ball’s intention to withdraw from UCLA,” Coach Steve Alford said in a statement. “We respect the decision he and his family have made, and we wish him all the best in the future.”
Alford had said last week that he and his staff were communicating with the players via text messages and calls, mostly to see if they are attending classes. The players are allowed to use athletic facilities, including the weight room, but aren’t working directly with the coaching staff, he said.
Related: LaVar Ball’s Air Ball
Alford indicated last week that he expected the fate of the three suspended players to be resolved in the near term.
LiAngelo is the middle child of Ball’s three sons. Oldest son Lonzo is a rookie with the Lakers; he played one successful season at UCLA.
The elder Ball pulled his youngest son, LaMelo, out of Chino Hills High recently in favor of home-schooling him.
LiAngelo Ball never played a regular-season game for the Bruins (7-1), who fell out of the Top 25 last week.
Ball minimized Trump’s involvement in winning the players’ release.
LaVar Ball and President Donald Trump have engaged in a public war of words since the three players returned from China. Ball minimized Trump’s involvement in winning the players’ release — and after that, Trump tweeted in response that he should have left the players in China in jail. Ball rebuffed the president’s demands for credit, saying it was Chinese President Xi Jinping who freed his son.
Fox News previously reported that Trump escalated his Twitter war with the Ball patriarch, calling him “a poor man’s Don King” and an “ungrateful fool.”
This Fox News piece is used by permission; the Associated Press contributed.
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