The Story of what happened to LaMelo Ball in Lithuania

Guile

Guile

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16 year old trying to become a pro, it's going to be a bit bumpy.
 
Shogun

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“Go to a small place where you got the buzz. Don’t go where they got 20 other things going on and you just another lil’ pea in a pod.”
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Anyone know who first introduced this tactic?

BBB and Vytautas are already cozy. “You take care of me in Lithuania, I take care of you in L.A.!” LaVar says, with his signature grin, to Seskus later on in practice.
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:patrice:

I ask Seskus why he doesn’t push Melo more. He tells me this as assistant coach Marius Leonavicius translates: “It’s his first time away from home. It’s his first time playing grown-men basketball, so there’s a lot of pressure from everywhere else, and I don’t want to put on extra pressure yet.”

I press him. “Is it the family? You don’t want to piss them off?”

Seskus pauses. “Yeah,” he says, smiling. “There is some truth in it.”

“How is he best going to grow, though?”

“We are still trying to figure this out ourselves. Of course it is better to push him more, but we will get to that.”

When?
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:patrice:

I see the pride LaVar has for his son, though it’s spilling out in the wrong way at the wrong time, but that is human emotion at its core: uncontrollable, messy, deep. I remember the LaVar I see every morning at breakfast, wheeling around his wife, Tina, who is recovering from a stroke. He pushes her wheelchair slowly to make sure she gets what she wants. Croissant? An orange? An egg? I remember the smile on LaVar’s face when I ask him about Melo and he pluralizes his answer to “All my boys.” He reminds me, repeatedly, to not forget about Gelo: “He’s the key. He’s a cold piece of work.”

Despite his theatrics, LaVar has given his boys love and attention and guidance. He has taught them to dream, to believe they are worthy, to morph into entrepreneurs in a world too dependent on their subservience. “It’s like this. Everybody has a cake right here,” LaVar says to me, picking up the Verslo Zinios, a Lithuanian newspaper, in our interview at the hotel lobby. He slams it down on a nearby table.
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:ehh:

As I watch Melo dribble, I imagine he’s playing in Spain or Germany or Italy for a higher-caliber club, for a coach committed to mining every bit of gold out of him. I imagine that coach bringing out a giant pad and slamming it into Melo’s gut as he rises for a layup to teach him to finish in traffic better. I imagine that coach limiting him to three dribbles when he catches the ball to maximize his routes to the hoop. I imagine that coach ordering Melo “on the line” every time he jogs back on defense or shoots without getting his feet under him.

The reality is Melo is here, still playing against lesser opponents, like the youth team of Lietuvos Rytas. Melo flew down the court and drilled wide-open layup after layup, scoring 31 points in Vytautas’ 130-93 blowout. He even threw the ball off the backboard for an alley-oop to himself (he missed).
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:francis:

Melo isn’t starting. He needs reps, but Seskus needs wins. Guard Tomas Dimsa starts instead, beating his man baseline and rising up for a thunderous dunk. Melo’s eyes widen. The 24-year-old is everything Melo is striving to be: composed yet dominant, patient yet explosive.

Melo doesn’t talk trash or roll his eyes.

The Melo I see here, every day, never does. He doesn’t seem like the arrogant kid he’s portrayed as back home. He seems like he’s trying to make the best of things. Once, during practice, he jogged to get water and went over to Aivaras Pranckevicius, the team’s trainer, holding his bottle up like it was a champagne glass, motioning for a toast. The two tapped bottles and laughed.

His teammates constantly little-bro him, like when Maceina threw a ball at his butt. “He always makes us laugh in the locker room,” guard Denys Lukashov tells me. I watched them cheer Melo on in a moment of growth, when he turned down a wide-open three to dump the ball down low for an easy deuce.

And tonight, when Melo comes in late in the first quarter against Pieno Zvaigzdes, he is just as poised. He pauses a second before taking his shot, but he’s subbed out after five minutes. He sits quietly, accepting what has transpired.

But then I hear that voice again. I don’t even need to turn my head to see who it is.

“GIVE MELO A CHANCE TO PLAY!” LaVar yells as the gym falls still, though folks seem less surprised this time.

Seskus’ eyes remain hooked to the court, refusing to circle back to LaVar.
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CantStop

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You can tell a bytch wrote this article.

It was intended for you to a) Feel bad for Melo and b) have anger towards Lavar

You read one Lavar hit piece, you read them all.

They tried the same tactic with Lonzo... "He looks depressed...he's scared of his dad" meanwhile Lonzo continued to dismiss that agenda talking point and has a track called Lavar on his mixtape but media will spin that around and say Lavar forced him to make it.
 
Dwight Howard

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He was 13 when he verbally committed to UCLA. He was 14 when he helped Chino Hills begin its 60-game winning streak. He was 16 when he got his own sneaker. “He’s not following anybody,” LaVar tells me. “He has his own brand.”

True. But Melo is still a character in LaVar’s script. And every move he makes is filmed—even without his family’s permission. Last year, Melo was riding in the car with Gelo, bumping music with the windows down. “MOTHERfukkER! MOTHERfukkER! MOTHERfukkER!” Melo rapped along to the song, unaware a man on the street was filming and would put the video on Instagram.

LaVar was furious with Melo. The kid was just trying to have fun, but much more is at stake. “What mom or dad wants to buy your shoe if you doing all that?” LaVar told him. Melo’s wildness, the thing that makes him glow, can’t always roam free. He isn’t allowed to just be 16. “You gotta understand that it’s not just about Melo,” LaVar tells me. “It’s all eyes on the family. It’s all eyes on the brand.”
:patrice:

Im trying to figure out the issue with this. Lavar has giving Melo way more freedom then I ever had at 16.
 
Skip b

Skip b

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Dwight Howard said:
He was 13 when he verbally committed to UCLA. He was 14 when he helped Chino Hills begin its 60-game winning streak. He was 16 when he got his own sneaker. “He’s not following anybody,” LaVar tells me. “He has his own brand.”

True. But Melo is still a character in LaVar’s script. And every move he makes is filmed—even without his family’s permission. Last year, Melo was riding in the car with Gelo, bumping music with the windows down. “MOTHERfukkER! MOTHERfukkER! MOTHERfukkER!” Melo rapped along to the song, unaware a man on the street was filming and would put the video on Instagram.

LaVar was furious with Melo. The kid was just trying to have fun, but much more is at stake. “What mom or dad wants to buy your shoe if you doing all that?” LaVar told him. Melo’s wildness, the thing that makes him glow, can’t always roam free. He isn’t allowed to just be 16. “You gotta understand that it’s not just about Melo,” LaVar tells me. “It’s all eyes on the family. It’s all eyes on the brand.”
:patrice:

Im trying to figure out the issue with this. Lavar has giving Melo way more freedom then I ever had at 16.
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They want boys to be boys and a father not to be a father; unitl they are stealing glasses in China and call them lightweight nikkas:mjlol:
 
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