LaVar Ball Plans To Start Pro Basketball League And Is Aiming To Lure ‘One And Done’ Players Away From The NCAA

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LaVar Ball plans to shake up the college basketball landscape. Today, the elder Ball announced that he’s launching a basketball league for highly ranked high school graduates who don’t want to play college ball for one year before turning pro.

Via ESPN

Ball said he was partly motivated by the comments made earlier in the month by NCAA president Mark Emmert, who was asked at a SportsBusiness Journal conference whether Ball was good or bad for the college game.

“Is this about someone being part of a university and playing basketball or any other sport with that school’s jersey on, representing that institution, or is it about preparing me for my career, my professional career as a ballplayer?” Emmert responded, just a few days after Ball’s son LiAngelo left UCLA to turn pro before even playing for the school. “If it’s the latter, you can do that inside a university and that might be a really good way to go. But if you don’t want to and you don’t think that it’s right for your family, then don’t come.”

“He was right,” Ball said. “Those kids who are one-and-done, they shouldn’t be there with the NCAA trying to hold them hostage, not allowing them to keep the jersey they wear while selling replicas of them in stores. So our guy isn’t going to go to Florida State for a year. He’s going to come to our league.”

Ball said his Junior Basketball Association — which he said is fully funded by his Big Baller Brand — plans to pay the lowest-ranked player a salary of $3,000 a month and the best player $10,000 a month. Ball is looking for 80 players to fill 10 teams that will seek to play at NBA arenas in Los Angeles, Dallas, Brooklyn and Atlanta.

Ball has shown that he knows how to get publicity for himself and his sons. Will that be enough to convince big time college recruits to choose him instead of Duke or Kentucky? We’ll have to wait and see.

Jorge Alonso BroBible avatar
Brobible sports editor. Jorge is a Miami native and lifelong Heat fan. He has been covering the NBA, MLB and NFL professionally for almost 10 years, specializing in digital media.