LaMelo Ball's Team Pulled Out Of A Tournament Because It Wasn’t Paid A $10,000 Appearance Fee
Source - LaMelo Ball’s Spire Institute pulled out of the famed Hoophall Classic at the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame after the tournament refused an outside consultant’s request for a $10,000 appearance fee, according to a report.
The request came from Alan Foster, Forbes reported, a friend of LaVarr Ball who acts as Big Baller Brand’s business manager.
Tournament organizer Greg Procino said it was the first time anyone had asked for such a fee.
“The school/program did not request money,” Procino told Forbes in an email. “An outside ‘consultant’ who requested the change in terms did have certain financial requests. We did not pay them to participate and Spire decided not to honor the original agreement for Hoophall Classic.”
Jeff Orloff, Spire’s chief operating officer, told Forbes the request for an appearance fee was being investigated.
Just to recap: Spire (a high school team) signed up for a tournament. A dad (LaVar Ball) of one of the players (LaMelo Ball) asked his buddy (Alan Foster) to request an appearance fee for “the team” (his son). That request was denied, so the team pulled out of the tournament. Got it. *Tries not to laugh.
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Bravo, LaVar. You’ve managed to turn your family of “ballers” into an even bigger laughingstock than they already are. $10,000. For a HIGH SCHOOL TEAM! And this is after they comped all travel and hotel expenses.
“High school teams typically are compensated for travel and hotel expenses, but not an outright payment, the report said.”
Are times that bad at BBB or are you just an idiot? The best part is that most teams would kill to be in the tournament. The Hoophall Classic is considered a platform for the best high school basketball players in the world to showcase their skills. Durant played in it, Kyrie played in it, Anthony Davis played in it – a bunch of the guys who are stars in the league today, got noticed in part by performing well at Hoophall.
I never thought I’d write this sentence, but I actually feel bad for Melo. I can’t imagine having my dad send his buddy to try and shake down one of my basketball tournaments for money. They must not have sold as many Big Baller Brand sneakers as they anticipated. Can’t imagine why.
I’d tell Melo only a few more years until he’s playing in the NBA and out of his father’s grip, but I don’t know if that day will ever come.
PS: Shout out to the school for pretending they didn’t know what was going on.
“We’re not represented by Big Baller Brand in any way so any conversation or deal outside of anything I would have done, we’re not involved with. So if there was a conversation to anybody representing that they were Spire and wanted to be paid, we had nothing to do with it.”