LOS ANGELES — The Ball family’s brief association with college basketball is over.
According to LaVar Ball, his younger sons LiAngelo and LaMelo have signed with an agent, ensuring neither will play in the college ranks. The elder Ball told ESPN on Thursday that his plan is for the teenagers to play on the same team overseas.
Oldest brother Lonzo is the only Ball brother to have played in college, completing one season at UCLA before entering the NBA draft and being taken by the Los Angeles Lakers.
LiAngelo never played a regular-season game for the Bruins after being indefinitely suspended last month for shoplifting during the team’s season-opening trip to China. Youngest brother, LaMelo, was headed to Westwood in two years, but that plan has been scuttled.
LaVar Ball recently withdrew LaMelo from Chino Hills High, where he was a junior, and said he was going to home school him.
LaVar Ball told ESPN that LiAngelo and LaMelo have signed with Harrison Gaines, the same agent who represents Lonzo Ball.
“I don’t care about the money,” LaVar Ball told ESPN. “I want them to go somewhere where they will play them together on the court at the same time. The priority is for the boys to play on the same team.”
Ball pulled LiAngelo from UCLA earlier this week, saying he was frustrated that the school hadn’t made a final decision on the length of his son’s suspension following the shoplifting incident.
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