LaVar Ball criticises Vytautas rotation after LiAngelo and LaMelo held scoreless in professional debut

LiAngelo and LaMelo did not look ready for the professional game just yet after both players failed to register a single point in nine and five minutes respectively on their professional basketball debuts.

With the Big Baller challenge cited as a mere exhibition tournament played amongst junior players, Vytautas’ LKL game against Lietkabelis would be the Ball brothers’ first taste of proper professional action, a first taste of a high-level standard that father LaVar is saying that they worthy of, and what better way than to go up against a team that competed in this season’s EuroCup regular season.

Unfortunately, it went horrendously wrong.

The 19-year-old LiAngelo Ball came off the bench and played nine minutes in total with his 16-year-old brother LaMelo registering just five minutes. Their inexperience at this level was clearly evident as Lietkabelis toyed with the Ball brothers as they went a combined 0/7 from the field, and looked severely out of place as the home side won 95-86.

LaMelo did have a steal while providing some spark off the bench. LiAngelo had a three-pointers pointer waved off because he stepped on the sideline just before releasing it.

The prolific Adas Juskevicius led the winners with 18 points. Tomas Dimsa scored a game-high 26 points for Vytautas.

Clearly unhappy with the minutes distributed, LaVar went on to criticise Vytautas’ rotation during the game, stating that his sons’ influences would have helped his side during the loss.

For all the hype pre-game where LaMelo had a picture taken by a Lietkabelis player amongst others, they realised that the professional rank is worlds from high school in the States.

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