I understand LaVar Ball trying to market his sons, but I can’t rock with him doing this to a young coach, especially a young black coach.
He should be ashamed of himself.
LaVar has tendencies to use alternative facts to make himself look better while putting other people down.
That isn’t cool and what he did to Stephan Gilling might be something NBA teams will have to deal with in the future.
The story starts with Chino Hills losing a game at halftime and Coach Gilling wanting to change defense strategies, but LaVar had other things in mind.
USA Today has the story.
“I go into the locker room, and I tell the guys to stop double teaming – just stay with your man,” Gilling said. “You do that, we’ll definitely get stops and come back and win.”
Yet, there was that voice again in the second half: “Double team! Double team!”
When Ball would shout for the double-team, Chino Hills players reluctantly followed his instruction. Gilling would yell, “Stop trapping!”
Gilling’s message got through to his players. Chino Hills stuck to man-to-man defense and rallied to win, 76-68.
Gilling remembers an incensed Ball bolting straight for the locker room.
“He comes to me and says, ‘What are you doing? What are you doing?’ I said, ‘What do you mean? I’m trying to win the game.’
“He turns around and walks to our locker room,” Gilling said. “I said, ‘LaVar, don’t go into the locker room.’ He continues walking. I said, ‘LaVar, why are you trying to embarrass me?’ And he just kept walking and goes into the locker room. He’s in there sitting down with the team. And I’m like, ‘LaVar, get out!’”
Gilling says Ball refused to leave the locker room, so Gilling told his team to follow him back to the hotel while Ball’s sons, LiAngelo and LaMelo, stayed behind.
When the Chino Hills team made it back to their hotel, Ball still hadn’t cooled down. In fact, he was just getting started.
“An assistant coach comes up to me and tells me that he sees LaVar rallying the team up,” Gilling said. “I guess he got them out of their rooms on the 18th floor and tells the team that it was his system that won. That we’re doing what he says. ‘I run Chino Hills! I run UCLA, about to run the NBA!’
This continued for the rest of the season, with Ball blaming Gilliam for Chino Hills not winning the state championship.
Ball was a guest on ESPN LA’s Morning Show with Keyshawn, Jorge and LZ, and the target of that morning’s conversation was Gilling. Ball gladly blamed Gilling for the season-ending loss.
“Man, we were supposed to go to Sacramento, but that coach is hard-headed,” Ball said. “He wanted to do things his way. If we would have gotten along, we would have been in the state title easy. But he’s trying to have a little resistance towards me. And I’m like, ‘Man, try and do it your way. That’s why you lost three games.’
“Because once he run and just play and when my son really wants to play for you, we’re gonna do good. But when you have any kind of resistance towards me, and you the head coach, it don’t work out that good. I already knew he was going to lose that game.”
Gilling stated that after LaVar tried to emasculate him, Ball’s sons started to act differently towards him.
I get LaVar Ball wants to be a star and believes in his sons, but what he did to Gilling was totally unnecessary and bullying behavior.