LaVar Ball and Big Baller Brand were going to start the Junior Basketball Association (JBA), a league that would rival the NCAA by offering a paid opportunity ($3,000-$10,000 a month) to graduating high school basketball players.
Looks like things aren’t going so smoothly for the most famous basketball dad on the planet. The easy part is saying you’re going to start a league, the hard part is getting the players to actually play in the league.
“Getting these players is going to be easy,” Ball told ESPN. “This is giving guys a chance to get a jump-start on their career, to be seen by pro scouts, and we’re going to pay them because someone has to pay these kids.”
Ball said the league would be funded through the Big Baller Brand and that players could make anywhere from $3000-$10,000 monthly.
Still, even with the incentive of cash, Ball and his staff have learned that getting elite high school players to sign on will be anything but a cakewalk.
“It’s definitely not for me,” said Woodlands (Texas) shooting guard Quentin Grimes, a Kansas signee. “It was more like a funny thing to see the Big Baller Brand sliding in my DM’s.”
Westtown School (West Chester, Penn.) shooting guard Cam Reddish said reps from Big Baller Brand took it a step further with him and came out to one of his games.
“At first I was shocked because I didn’t understand why they were there until someone told me,” said Reddish, a Duke signee. “I mean it’s a cool; they’re doing their thing, but it’s not for me. I’m a college guy.”
That was the general consensus among the McDonald’s All Americans; makes sense when you consider that most players in the 2018 class were around 6 years old when the NBA implemented its age limit in 2006.
Lavar even sliding into kids’ Dm’s. That’s pretty creepy. No one will watch unless the talent is elite. Which is proving pretty hard to obtain. LaVar is just going to have to stick to being a shoe salesman.
