Charles Barkley has been an outspoken critic of five-star-hoops-recruit patriarch LaVar Ball. He’s accused Ball of exploiting his sons for money, and in the aftermath of LiAngelo’s arrest in China for shoplifting, he and the Inside the NBA crew viciously roasted the embattled family.
Ball has apparently had enough. As he, LiAngelo and LaMelo travel to Lithuania to embark on the boys’ controversial international basketball career, with considerable fanfare, Ball didn’t hold back when responding to a question about both his public image and the criticism he’s received in the media from broadcasters like Barkley and Stephen A. Smith, among others.
And Ball didn’t hesitate to make things personal this time around. Not only did he call out Barkley’s own hypocrisy for past legal troubles of his own, he made other salacious claims about Barkley’s personal life.
Via Jared Zwerling of Sports Illustrated‘s The Crossover:
Like Charles Barkley, he’s been talking crazy. ‘LaVar is a bad father, this and that.’ And I’m just, like, ‘Don’t even talk about Gelo going to China because you’ve been in jail in Arizona. You have kids that you don’t even talk about. You have a daughter nobody knows about.’ A lot of things he’s done bad. I was a fan of Charles because of how hard he played. And now, he’s doing all this talking like Stephen A. Smith.
Ball’s comments come amid even more bizarre news. On Friday, his sons’ Lithuanian team, Yvtautas, announced that they would break away from the Baltic Basketball League mid-season so they could start something called the “Big Baller Brand Challenge Games,” which is being billed as a five-game showcase for the two American youngsters to compete against other young Lithuanian talents.
In any case, Ball’s rant about Barkley isn’t the least bit surprising, and given Barkley’s penchant for speaking his mind, expect a response sometime in the near future.
