LaVar Ball has been on midday sports television programs dozens of times this year, regularly spouting off ridiculous nonsense that is, otherwise, harmless and occasionally entertaining. However, on Wednesday, Ball found himself at the center of controversy and allegations of being sexist after a tense back-and-forth with Colin Cowherd’s co-host Kristine Leahy on The Herd over Big Baller Brand’s shoe sales and lack of marketing towards women.
Ball refused to look at Leahy, instead choosing to face Cowherd exclusively, even when addressing her. Ball’s dismissive tone of Leahy, including at one point telling her to “stay in your lane,” and claim that Big Baller Brand wasn’t for women led to him being widely criticized.
During the backlash to Ball’s comments, some dug deeper to understand why he would act so hostile towards Leahy, and clips of her discussing Ball, most specifically his parenting and her assertion that his kids are afraid of him, from over a month ago came up.
https://youtu.be/AOWnnop_Le0?t=1m20s
This would explain Ball not wanting to be particularly friendly with Leahy. Leahy should know it’s always a dangerous area to go when you start criticizing someone’s parenting style — something Ball knows after he got ripped by LeBron James for comments he made about LeBron’s kids.
However, while explaining Ball’s hostility, it doesn’t excuse how dismissive he was in responding to her and the “stay in your lane” comment was about as bad as he could do in dealing with the situation — also, claiming Big Baller Brand wasn’t a “women’s brand’ is also not a great idea.
Ball could’ve addressed those comments head-on and had a conversation – it even could have been testy – about his parenting style to defend himself and it would have come across far better. In this situation, both Leahy and Ball manage to look bad, especially Ball, who runs an apparel company that does have a women’s line, has alienated that potential market by taking the worst possible option in confronting Leahy for her parenting comments that some would consider out of line.
(h/t Sporting News)
