Written by Kyle Boone at CBS Sports.com
The big winner of the NBA Draft Lottery on Tuesday was the Los Angeles Lakers. They not only secured the No. 2 pick for next month’s draft, which would have been lost if it fell outside the top-three, and likely solidified their shot at Lonzo Ball.
Lonzo’s mild-mannered father LaVar also won. He’s been talking up a Lonzo-Lakers pairing for months. Now, the ball is in Magic Johnson’s court. And many believe the Lakers will select the UCLA point guard.
That’s part of why LaVar is raising his asking price for a co-branding opportunity with an apparel company from $1 billion to $3 billion.
“Now that Lonzo’s headed to Los Angeles, what they should have done is give me a billion dollars and let me be on my way,” LaVar Ball said on Fox Sports 1.
When he was told that number was unreleastic, he fired back that it was, “unrealistic to you.”
“Now you know … if they want to talk to me now, it just went up to $3 billion. Triple Bs, billion, billion, billion. That’s the only way they going to come at me. I’m already in the building. I don’t need them for nothing, as you can tell.”
LaVar is sticking to the script he’s set with the family company. Triples Bs, “billion, billion, billion,” as he said, also lines up with the company’s name: Big Baller Brand.
Although reports indicate sales for his son’s signature sneakers have stumbled, Ball says the ZO2s have been steady since sales opened a couple weeks ago. He claims that about 400 to 500 pairs of shoes have been sold.
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