Lavar Ball, the father of young LA Lakers star Lonzo Ball, is the talk of the NBA.
The elder Bol controversially announced the arrival of his son in the strongest league in the world, and now he has been waiting for the coaches to talk about him - all because he publicly attacked Lik Walton, who is sitting on the Lakers' bench.
"No player in the team wants to play for him," Bol said.
The answer came from Golden State... Coach Steve Kerr gave a lesson to the basketball public and journalists.
"How many people has ESPN fired in the last year? More than 100, and many of them were talented journalists covering the NBA. So this is not an assessment of ESPN, but primarily a sociological thing. We are moving in a direction where more it's not important to cover the game itself, but to write sensational news. It's not even news, it's absolute nonsense, but if you jump and sort out that nonsense, people will want to read and watch it," says Kerr and adds:
"I talked to people from the media this year and asked them why you write about that character. They all answered me that they don't want to do that, but their bosses ask them for readership. Somewhere, probably in Lithuania, Lavar Ball is laughing at that. People are eating out of his hand for no apparent reason other than he's somehow become the Kardashian of the NBA," Kerr clearly alludes to Ball being a reality TV device.
Kerr continued in the same breath:
"Do you know how many parents of my players are sitting at home and wondering why I'm not giving their son more minutes. But the microphone is still being shoved under Bol's face, because that will increase the viewership and readership. People obviously care about him, because ESPN otherwise he wouldn't spend money and sends his journalists to Lithuania, where his other two sons are now playing," Kerr pointed out.
Bonus video:
