Years after LiAngelo Ball went undrafted, LaVar Ball still seems convinced that Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka never kept their word. The Big Ball Brand founder claimed the franchise had promised to reunite the Ball brothers but abandoned that plan on draft night. The patriarch of the Ball family has again revisited one of the biggest ‘what-ifs’ in his family’s hoops journey and accused the Lakers of breaking a promise that he believes altered LiAngelo’s NBA path.

“Gelo was supposed to get drafted ’cause Pelinka and Magic we go in the same room, and they said, ‘We’re gonna keep the family together,'” LaVar recalled in his conversation with Gilbert Arenas on his podcast, The LaVar Ball Show. “That’s when I thought, ‘For sure, Gelo’s gonna be like 50th pick, we good.’ They asked me, ‘What y’all need Lonzo to do?’ I said ‘What y’all need to do for Lonzo? Bring his brother.’ ‘Oh, don’t worry about it, we’re gonna keep the family together.’

And when they drafted the other dude from Michigan, I was like, ‘Pelinka, oh, he’s sucking something because he used to be an agent too.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, he owes some favors. You gotta do that.’ So that’s why my boy got left out. And then. They thought everything died down.”

LaVar recalled a private meeting with then-Lakers president Magic Johnson, Lonzo Ball, and members of the front office before the 2018 NBA draft. Believing the deal was all done, they expected LiAngelo to come off the board near the end of the draft. However, the night turned out very differently.

The LA team selected Moritz Wagner with the 25th pick before drafting Svi Mykhailiuk at 47th, leaving LiAngelo without a spot. Not long after, league insider Ramona Shelburne tweeted that the Lakers “officially informed” the middle Ball brother that he wouldn’t be part of their Summer League team either.

“They were determined to make this a basketball decision but as one source put it, ‘obviously there’s more to it than basketball,'” Shelburne posted.

The report indirectly referred to LaVar’s constant outspokenness about Lonzo Ball’s situation with the Lakers. Lonzo is LiAngelo’s older brother, who was drafted by the LA team second overall the previous year. Their father told TMZ that trading him would be “the worst move” the Lakers would ever make.

LaVar’s public criticism of LA coach Luke Walton and his approach to lineup decisions involving his son reached a point where Johnson and Pelinka had to have an impromptu meeting with him. Lonzo’s father later confirmed that the Purple and Gold front office asked him to “tone it down.” However, LaVar defended his own approach and expected them to have a mindset of “coming together and to get a solution to this problem.”

Eventually, that entire Ball-Lakers relationship fell apart. LiAngelo was never drafted, and Lonzo was traded in 2019 to acquire perennial All-Star forward Anthony Davis from the New Orleans Pelicans.

Looking back, however, LaVar felt the promise break. He believed the Lakers never did Lonzo justice, and the one way to help him was to unite the Ball brothers. While he spoke positively about Johnson’s role in the conversation, LaVar directed much of his frustration toward then-vice president Pelinka.

Referencing his previous career as a longtime NBA agent, LaVar suggested an outside ‘political’ game ultimately changed the organization’s plans. According to him, league executives believed the Ball family’s influence would eventually fade after LiAngelo went undrafted, the Junior Basketball Association lost momentum, and the Big Baller Brand no longer dominated headlines. But that’s when the tables turned…

“Then my youngest resurfaced, messed them up again,” LaVar said. “They didn’t think that was gonna happen. It didn’t happen like that, so like the Phoenix, we rise.”

As he refers, the ‘youngest’ Ball brother, LaMelo, who was drafted in 2023 with the No. 3 pick by the Charlotte Hornets, has had several notable performances against the Lakers over the years, including a 30-point night (9 3P-M) in a 135-117 blowout victory over LA, and a record 25-point triple-double outing in 2021.

LaVar has remained committed to the vision of seeing all three brothers playing together, though. In his view, no Ball brother ever had enough influence to shape a franchise’s decisions single-handedly. Two brothers on the same roster, however, could eventually create enough leverage to bring in the third.

“Lonzo by himself don’t have enough pull. Melo by himself don’t have enough pull. But two on the same team got enough pull to get the third one,” LaVar said. “That’s the only way you’re gonna get on it.”

All in all, this wasn’t the first time LaVar called out the Lakers’ front office for reportedly breaking their promise. He narrated similar renditions of the story at least twice in the last six years.

Whether LaVar’s account reflects everything that happened behind closed doors remains impossible to verify. That’s simply because Johnson and Pelinka haven’t said a word about it yet. Magic, in fact, abruptly stepped down as the President of Basketball Operations in 2019. It is unclear whether the Ball family situation and this resignation are linked.

But nearly a decade after the 2018 draft, LaVar’s feelings have clearly not changed, despite the JBA and Big Baller Brand seemingly not working out. Basically, LaVar founded the Junior Basketball Association, offering an alternative that allowed high schoolers to bypass the NCAA circuit and even get paid. BBB was his sports apparel brand that fully funded the league. However, the JBA existed for only a single season in 2018, with no future seasons announced.

Even hours before LaMelo Ball’s latest move to the Minnesota Timberwolves, LaVar proposed a Ball Brothers reunion in Charlotte. Now, the trajectory has changed a bit, though. Can Melo take the Ball Family to further heights?