One Wild Night in Lavar Ball's JBA
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On tap for today--
I share my personal experience from attending Lavar Ball's "Junior Basketball Association," and a reported story I did from the event.
Underneath you'll also get five "things," articles or blogs or podcasts or videos or TV episodes or something, which I discovered this week think is well worth your time. Let me waste my time scouring the internet for the best stuff, so you don't have to. Some really good ones this week!!
One Wacky Night in Lavar Ball's JBA
You've no doubt heard of Lavar Ball by now. Chances are you have a strong opinion of him. I know I did. So when the opportunity arose to attend the Junior Basketball Association All-Star Game in Chicago on Friday, and potentially interact with the Ball family myself, it was too enticing to pass up.
I went to the event and reported the story below for an assignment, but found many of my family and friends asking me the same thing: "What was it really like?" So here's one quick personal observation.
To me, the JBA is a little bit like The Wizard of Oz.
There may not be a tin man with no heart, or a lion with no courage, but the JBA is for the most part filled with players who are missing something. Maybe they're too short, or don't have the best attitude, or maybe they can't keep up in school, or maybe they've had drug issues. And they all fall into line behind Dorothy, or in this case LaMelo Ball (complete with his own shoes that aren't far from bright red slippers), all hoping to make their way down the yellow-brick road to the Emerald City (NBA contracts).
Lavar would be the Wizard, since he's achieved almost mythical status in the basketball world. He willed his son into being a top pick on his favorite team, so is he an evil genius who can grant the wishes of these aspiring young players?
It didn't seem like it from where I was sitting. In this analogy, my experience on Friday would be a bit like when Todo pulls the curtain back, to reveal that the wizard is actually just a middle-aged humbug.
The hundreds of thousands of Facebook views translated to just a few hundred spectators. To compensate, prices were laughably high, from the $100 "courtside seats" to the "special promotion" of two Big Baller Brand t-shirts for $70 at the merchandise table. Media credentials were paper wristbands. LiAngelo Ball's score of nine in the three-point shootout (out of 30) was enough to advance him to the finals. The winning dunk in the dunk contest was a 29 (out of 50). Then the game started, a nearly three-hour layup line exercise that ended in a final score of 202-189. Half of the players were too cool to try, the other half just weren't good enough to be cool.
(As for interactions with the Ball family, it went exactly as you expect. LaMelo was completely dismissive and Lavar was over-the-top)
And just like the movie, when the Wizard gives the tin man a knock-off ticking heart watch instead of a real heart and the lion a medal instead of courage, each of the adventurers swears they've gotten their wishes granted. Every player I spoke to was convinced the JBA was a launching pad to a long and successful professional career.
I hope, in the case of someone like Deon Lyle, that by some wizardry they may be right.
As players got set for the tipoff of the Junior Basketball Association All-Star Game, all cameras were pointed at LaMelo and LiAngelo Ball standing near midcourt, or their father Lavar on the sidelines.
But within 10 seconds, it became clear that the best player on the floor at Quest Multisport on Friday was Deon Lyle. His three-pointer on the opening possession would be the first of 10 triples to fall in a 51-point performance that earned him MVP honors despite his East All-Stars losing the high-scoring affair 202-189.
“It’s been the same all season,” said league commissioner Lavar Ball, who came to fame as the outspoken patriarch of a family tailed by reality TV cameras. “Deon is a scorer, that’s who he is.”
Lyle’s performance is even more impressive considering that just five years ago, he was in drug rehab after being kicked out of the high school in his hometown of Hastings, Nebraska.
“I thought I had no opportunities,” Lyle said. “That’s kind of where I realized I’ve got to stick to something to make it out, to keep living my life, so it was basketball.”
Needing a fresh start, Lyle moved to northern Kansas to finish his high school career. After two years in the junior college ranks, the 6-foot-5 guard received a scholarship to the University of Texas at San Antonio, where he earned Sixth Man of the Year in Conference USA during the 2017-2018 season.
Then in the spring he left to join the upstart JBA, a professional basketball league funded almost entirely by the Ball family and its company, Big Baller Brand. Players reportedly receive $3,000 per month and 60 percent of their jersey sale revenue.
“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity just to meet the Ball family and be a part of what they’re doing,” Lyle said. “I like the opportunity to promote [my] brand the [I] you want to, because at universities you’ve got to do it the university way.”
It remains to be seen whether the league will be able to help players land contracts in the NBA or in overseas leagues, making it a risk for those who have college scholarship offers on the table. But it has quickly become a landing spot for players like Lyle, who hope to use the exposure to escape a checkered past.
“College is not for everybody,” said Milton Doyle, a Chicago native and current Brooklyn Nets shooting guard who sat courtside for Friday’s game. “If basketball can be an outlet for these kids to stay out of trouble then that’s great.”
After each of Lyle’s three-pointers found the bottom of the net, cutouts of his face could be seen in one row of the crowd. They were held by members of his family. His father, mother, sister, and one of his two brothers made the 12-hour drive from Hastings to Chicago to see Lyle play for the first time since joining the JBA. After the game, the family embraced and Lyle handed his brother the MVP trophy.
“He’s matured a lot,” said Sarah Lyle, Deon’s mother. “[Basketball] motivated him to stay focused. It gave him a second chance.”
The Best Things I Found This Week:
Chasing the Nashville Dream
Longform
For decades, young musicians have been moving to Nashville with a guitar and a dream. But the path to success is far different in the modern music industry. Jordan Ritter Conn spins this beautiful tale around three aspiring talents struggling against the system, and is able to insert spot-on big picture observations into the personal narrative.
As someone who loves the city of Nashville but has no delusions of making a career in music, I found this paragraph particularly astute:
"[Nashville] has nestled its way into a category of American cities mostly populated by massive hubs like New York or L.A., or by beautiful destinations like Hawaii or Montana—a place where people show up with no job, no friends, and no plans, arriving with no more than the thought: 'I would like to live there.'"
How Netflix Makes Money
Video
Have you ever wondered how Netflix is able to drop dozens of new shows and movies every single week? How they can spend a staggering $13 billion on original content in 2018 alone?
This seven-minute video from The Ringer is incredible, the absolute best explanation of the current digital video landscape you'll ever see. You walk away with not only an understanding of how Netflix makes and spends money, but also why, and why every other platform is scrambling to copy them.
Jeff Bezos and Amazon's Brutal Effeciency
Essay
Amazon is taking over the world. I guess, more accurately, that means Jeff Bezos is taking over the world. Is that a good or bad thing? Every story about the ecommerce behemoth's rise is simultaneously impressive and disheartening.
This awesome story by Jacob Silverman of Longreads explores the fundamental moral dilemma at the center of Amazon's dominance: does the convenience and affordability offered to the ultimate customer justify the horrific treatment of its employees and the manipulation of the government? Super interesting.
Origins of a Champion
Podcast
James Andrew Miller is the king of access, somehow able to insert himself into highly sensitive environments and come out with incredible stories, again and again. After publishing all-access books on ESPN, Saturday Night Live, and Creative Artists Agency, he launched his own podcast last year with a look at the creation of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David's HBO comedy. It was excellent.
Now he's returned for a second season of the show, diving into the Alabama football dynasty. If this is anything like his previous works, there will be plenty of information uncovered that we did not know before. Can he truly crack the Saban shell?
Honest Trailers - Deep Blue Sea
Video
*Deep 1990's Movie Trailer Voice* In a world...of ever-expanding YouTube originals, one series stands above the rest.**
If you've never seen any of the Honest Trailers, be prepared to fall down a YouTube rabbit hole for dozens of hours. As the name implies, they are movie reviews disguised as parody movie trailers. And the comedy is so good it almost masks how astute the observations are. It's spot on! The brilliance of the concept is that it allows bad movies to hang themselves in a way that's really indisputable. Which is why all the best episodes are of bad movies. And Deep Blue Sea is a very bad movie. So this week's Honest Trailer is fantastic, check it out.