If LaVar Ball has proven anything in the time he's been in the public eye, it's that he's not afraid to say anything at all.
Ball, who traveled to Lithuania to spend some time with his two sons, LiAngelo and LaMelo as they start their stints with their new Lithuanian team, recently did a Q&A with Jared Zwerling of Sports Illustrated's The Crossover. In it, the mercurial figure spoke candidly and at great length about how he views his own public image.
During his comments, he mentioned how he feels about how Inside the NBA analyst Charles Barkley has come after Ball for the dynamic he has with his sons. And Ball wasn't afraid to get a little personal.
“Like Charles Barkley, he's been talking crazy. ‘LaVar is a bad father, this and that.' And I'm just, like, ‘Don't even talk about Gelo going to China because you've been in jail in Arizona. You have kids that you don't even talk about. You have a daughter nobody knows about.' A lot of things he's done bad. I was a fan of Charles because of how hard he played. And now, he's doing all this talking like Stephen A. Smith.”
Yikes.
It's bad enough that Ball is criticized every which way for every little thing he does concerning any one of his three sons. But some of the things that Barkley has sad in the last few months have crossed at least a few lines.
It's not surprising that Ball would want to defend himself and his family. But going after some of the personal things in Barkley's life just seems like he's sinking down to the level of him or someone like Smith.
It's difficult to expect Ball not to say anything when people make personal attacks on him. But it's clear there is plenty of blame to go around.
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