Lonzo Ball hails from a long line of basketball greats and plays point guard for the Chicago Bulls.

Both LaVar and Tina Ball, Lonzo’s parents, played collegiate basketball at Cal State Los Angeles in the ’80s and ’90s. Their ambition was to have three basketball superstar boys after they were married in 1997, according to LaVar. Since his three boys, Lonzo, LiAngelo, and LaMelo, started making waves in the NBA in 2015, he has been forthright and unapologetic about his family’s purpose.

“Speak it into existence,” LaVar said in 2017 when asked about his aspirations for the basketball court. “Keep talking about it until it happens.”
Lonzo, the first of his father’s prophesies, was born in October 1997. He was a student in high school when he made a verbal commitment to play basketball at UCLA. After only one season of college, he was drafted by the NBA.

Like Lonzo, Lonzo’s younger brother LiAngelo committed to UCLA as a sophomore, but LiAngelo never got on the court for the Bruins. He made the announcement to play for the Astros De Jalisco in Mexico’s professional league in February 2024. In 2020, the Charlotte Hornets drafted LaMelo Ball, the youngest of the three brilliant Ball brothers.

But LaVar, the patriarch of the Ball family, keeps setting higher standards, even if the Ball sons have become successful. The proud father of three expressed his desire to watch his three sons play for the same NBA team in an interview with The Association airing on Fox in January 2021.

“Nobody has ever built a franchise around a family,” stated LaVar. That is why I am urging you to try something different. Just put your structures around the Ball lads and see what happens.

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Basketball greatness was inevitable for LaVar’s children, he claimed.
While both Tina and LaVar were Cal State Los Angeles student athletes, they initially crossed paths. The former collegiate basketball player has admitted that Tina’s 6-foot size was more appealing to him than her attractive appearance.

While making a joke with the Orange County Register in 2017, LaVar said, “I keep telling people, I picked her for the genes.”.

The following is an excerpt from LaVar’s interview with USA Today: “When I first saw her walking down the hall, I just stopped and I said, ‘I don’t know what me and you are going to do together, but we’re going to do something.'”

As far as LaVar and Tina are concerned, that “something” was the birth of their three basketball-star sons. That is just what the newlyweds did after exchanging vows in 1997.

“That’s why I married my wife … with the way I’m built, and the way she’s built, I knew I was going to have three killers,” LaVar said in 2015 to CBS Sports. It was planned a long time ago, then. For the simple reason that I anticipated this outcome whenever two basketball players were together.

LaVar’s time in the NFL was cut short.
In the early 1990s, LaVar had a brief career as a professional football player before founding his family’s basketball legacy. According to ESPN, after LaVar’s collegiate basketball career ended, he played one season of collegiate football for Long Beach City College before the New York Jets of the National Football League signed him as a free agent in 1994.

LaVar was a member of the practice squads of the New York Jets for two seasons and the Carolina Panthers for one. By the decade’s close, LaVar had finished his football career with the London Monarchs of the World League of American Football, although he had returned to California to pursue a career in personal training.

Former Jets linebacker Marvin Jones recalled LaVar’s time on the team. He possessed an abundance of natural athleticism… Jones told ESPN in 2017 that he remembered a brash guy who was arrogant and outspoken, but that he otherwise appeared like a nice guy.

The Ball brothers were all scouted by UCLA.
Though Lonzo only spent one season at UCLA before heading to the NBA, his younger brothers followed in his footsteps. The Los Angeles Times reports that LiAngelo made his commitment to play basketball at UCLA in April 2015, while he was a sophomore in high school.

“Two down, one to go,” LaVar informed the website.

The third, LaMelo, followed just months later: In August 2015, when he was just 13 years old, LaMelo verbally committed to play at UCLA along with his two older brothers, Sports Illustrated reported.

An interview with LaMelo by the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin revealed that the school was her desired educational institution. “I decided to get it out of the way now instead of waiting for the future.”

Having said that, LaMelo and LiAngelo never suited up for UCLA. In November 2017, LiAngelo and two teammates were arrested on charges of shoplifting in China while traveling with the team. After being released by Chinese authorities and traveling back to L.A., LiAngelo was suspended indefinitely from the team, ESPN reported. A month or so later, LaVar pulled him out of UCLA.

LaMelo, who was deemed ineligible for an NCAA scholarship after releasing a shoe with his family’s sports apparel brand, BBB, and hiring an agent, also retracted his verbal commitment to UCLA in December 2017. Days later, the two brothers signed to play professionally in Lithuania, the Los Angeles Times reported.