In Netflix’s post-modern heist High Flying Bird, a street-savvy agent attempts to gain leverage for his cash-starved clients by finding ways to create value during a turbulent lockout season–a time where there is no leverage to be had for people outside the negotiating table. Spoiler alert–he achieves this by harnessing the power of social media, live-streaming, amateur elite talent, shotgun sponsorships, and by somehow maneuvering audience interest towards a closed-gym basketball game, turning it into the largest publicly broadcasted non-NBA basketball event in recent memory, away from the wrathful gaze of NBA front offices.
The idea of creating a truly iconic and financially rewarding basketball moment free from the iron grip of the NBA isn’t new. In an AAU game in 2017, Big Baller Brand star LaMelo Ball scored all his 31 points attempting to beat another viral sensation—a bouncy, bruising forward by the name of Zion Williamson. Williamson, today’s hot topic for being the first overall pick in the NBA draft, scored 28 points and bagged the win in a rabid game that was nearly cancelled because its grossly oversized crowd posed a fire hazard, and cops had to be summoned to barricade doors in order to avoid more people from spilling into the event.
NBA starts Andrew Wiggins, Damien Lillard, and Lonzo Ball were in attendance; and it was rumored that LeBron almost went but feared the security risks. The event was livestreamed to a crowd of 80,000 at Ball is Life and featured highlight-heavy footage of the modern-day retelling of Charles Barkley versus Steph Curry. The spectacle, resembling the basketball equivalent to Coachella, surprised many (even sponsor adidas), and University of Kansas Div-1 coach Bill Self couldn’t have summarized it any better in a comment to ESPN: “Unreal. Never seen anything like it.”
Believe it or not, in 2017 people actually lined up to see LaMelo Ball play basketball.
With the many failures and mishaps of the Ball family, it’s hard to conceive how a pure basketball phenomenon could fall flat on its face merely three years after its inception. It’s not the first ever case of good intentions masked in questionable decisions—just one of the most publicized in recent sporting history. Lonzo Ball, touted as the taller, more athletic Jason Kidd, was objectively an intriguing NBA prospect–but ultimately landed in the worst situation amid the most merciless fans outside of New York.
LiAngelo Ball was supposed to join in his brother’s footsteps by playing for UCLA, until a highly publicized shoplifting incident in China derailed his stateside career. LaMelo, after several reported tensions with his high school coaches and with the commercial BBB shoes threatening his NCAA eligibility, went full Emmanuel Mudiay and immediately went pro. What followed was an embarrassingly embellished circus with Lithuanian team Prienai that ended with both LiAngelo and LaMelo going back to the USA undrafted and without a college education.
Then there’s the massively sensationalist commercialism: $495 for the original ZO2, $395 for the MB1, and $200 for the ZO2.19. In comparison, the LeBron 16—the flagship shoe of the best basketball player in the world—costs $185. But then it’s not a foreign idea for an arrogant brand to sell massively overpriced clothing using the strength of its logo alone. Perhaps BBB couldn’t match the inspiration behind Supreme’s popularity; but it’s also entirely possible its inspirations lay somewhere totally different and less creative.
Weartesters being brutally honest with the BBB ZO2.19.
The recent news with co-founder Alan Foster’s reported $1.5M in payables only cements the notion that what could have been the most memorable Eureka moment in amateur basketball slowly poisoned itself with inane amounts of greed and selfish decision making. Lonzo, perhaps the only redeemable asset in this entire ordeal, can finally look forward without being weighed by the outlandish aspirations of one LaVar Ball. But looking back, there were genuinely bewildering moments within the BBB’s tortured history that truly warranted our attention.
LaMelo scoring 92 for Chino Hills (behind Dajuan Wagner’s famed 100), Lonzo’s winding and vociferously chronicled path to the NBA, LiAngelo’s 72-point outburst on 13 three pointers against Rancho Christian. And don’t forget when all three of them formed a high-octane, halfcourt-chucking machine in Chino Hills, which showed us that people were willing to point their phones at crazy moves, artificially-bloated stats, and comically unbridled basketball—and companies, platforms, and golddiggers were willing to make money off them.
LaMelo explodes for 92.
BBB was a modern rebel–a mythical beast that wanted so badly to fight the system; even if the system didn’t really want to.