Baby Ball: Will He Play?

Again, we have the Ball family in the news, by the way, it is a good thing, but this time the controversy is surrounding the baby Ball, Lamelo. Lamelo has come out with his own shoe because he has his own shoe he may be prohibited from playing NCAA basketball. According to NCAA rules, the use of a player’s name or image to advertise or promote a product is strictly forbidden.

First, Lamelo has two more years of high school before he will be in college, therefore if he stops promoting his shoe before then is he still ineligible? If his father owned a hardware store that’s named the Balls and an image of the entire family was on the front of the store would he still be ineligible? How can you penalize a person for profiting off the work he has done? If he was a painter would they stop him from selling his art?

Secondly, the NCAA are hypocrites, everyone is profiting off the athlete’s likeness and name except the athlete. Many of the schools have a deal with shoe companies, the NCAA television deal is based off the players, every NCAA commercial highlights the players, and they sell merchandise related to the player. So, the NCAA is saying we are only allowed to profit from your ability and we do not want to share any of that revenue with you.

Once again, Lava Ball is disrupting the natural order of doing business, he has empowered himself and his children. They are not employees they are owners and this way of thinking has infuriated the so-called businessmen because if the Ball family is successful this will forever change the way business is done surrounding the game of basketball. People and corporations make money off basketball players at all levels, Lava Ball recognized this early and decide if anyone is going to benefit from his sons’ talent it will be his family. Somehow people are convinced this mindset is wrong, professional athletes are so happy being an employee they cannot support the Ball efforts.

My prediction is that Lamelo Ball will not be eligible to play college basketball because the NCAA needs the Ball family to fail. Based on this happening I am going to make another prediction, there will be another basketball league created in America that will allow players to play straight out of High School. The new league will be back by Chinese businessmen and a player with strong ties to the Chinese business community, such as Dwayne Wade or Stephon Marbury will be the catalyst for the new league.