LiAngelo Ball was yanked out of UCLA by his father, LaVar Ball, who now intends to train his son to prepare for the NBA Draft.
LaVar Ball: "He's not transferring to another school," he told ESPN. "The plan is now to get Gelo ready for the NBA Draft." The plan was always for LiAngelo to spend one season at UCLA and then leave, regardless of whether he was projected to be drafted.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) December 4, 2017
Only, at least one NBA general manager has told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski the middle Ball son has no chance of being drafted. And it has little, or nothing at all, to do with Ball being arrested for shoplifting in China.
Ex-UCLA freshman LiAngelo Ball has no chance that he'll be drafted in June — and that was true before his shoplifting incident in China. "He's not on any of our scouting lists — even the extended lists," one GM told ESPN.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) December 4, 2017
Ball will struggle to find a serious job playing pro basketball, including the G-League. @Mike_Schmitz projected him in high school as a small-ball stretch 4-man at the mid-major college level. Would make sense for Ball to find a scholarship at a lower level and stay in school.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) December 4, 2017
This shouldn’t be particularly shocking news. Unlike his older brother Lonzo or his younger brother LaMelo, LiAngelo Ball isn’t particularly brilliant on the hardcourt. He came into UCLA as a 3-star recruit out of Chino Hills and was always a long shot to make it at the NBA level.
The fact that Ball pulled his son out of school, however, is pretty shocking, even though we shouldn’t be all that surprised in hindsight. He did, after all, pull LaMelo out of high school recently and seems committed to doing as many unconventional things for his sons as is humanly possible to “prepare” them for their next stages in life.