After an absolute whirlwind of a year, LaMelo Ball is coming back to the United States to play high school hoops. A former five-star recruit in the class of 2019, Ball was pulled out of high school by his father, LaVar, in 2017. From there, he went abroad to play professionally in Lithuania before returning stateside to play in LaVar’s Junior Basketball Association.
Now, Ball will enroll in Spire Institute in Ohio, where he will play out his final year of high school eligibility before moving on to … something. A fun thing with the Ball family is you never know quite what’s next, because every now and then, their youngest son will go from being a pro abroad to playing at a high school with a 7’7 teammate.
There’s still excitement over Ball’s return to high school hoops, because for all the weirdness surrounding his basketball career, he’s a popular and very good basketball player who has a shot at making it to the NBA if a few things break the right way. That might be why this billboard was put up in Ohio before his arrival.
.@overtime welcomed LaMelo Ball to Ohio with a billboard near West 3rd that was put up Thursday night. Ball is scheduled to arrive at Spire Institute in Geneva this morning. He'll play his senior year for Spire's high school team. pic.twitter.com/HXhKshjUmk
— Kevin Kleps (@KevinKleps) November 9, 2018
It’s certainly a nice gesture to add some excitement to what is probably a weird chapter in Ball’s life, but at the same time, this looks a whole hell of a lot like the famous LeBron James banner that hung in Cleveland across the street from Quicken Loans Arena during his first stint in town. At the very least, this shows that the expectations for what he can accomplish at Spire Institute are certainly pretty high, and it’s a creative execution by Overtime to get their name out there a bit more.
