1,453
online users
thotties       tv/movies       gaming       gear       tech       guap       rides       eats       health       bxwf       misc

LaFather Ball: ‘I run Chino Hills! I run UCLA, about to run the NBA!’


icon

more
ADVERTISEMENT
 
topics gone triple plat - Number 1 spot 3X PLAT



section  1   0 bx goons and 1 bystanders Share this on Twitter       Share this on Facebook
 

section sports
  

 7 years ago '14        #1
11532 page views
0 comments


Kyu  topics gone triple plat - Number 1 spot x49
avatar
Props total: 296508 296 K  Slaps total: 34686 34 K
icon LaFather Ball: ‘I run Chino Hills! I run UCLA, about to run the NBA!’
 

 
image


image
Chino Hills (Calif.) boys basketball head coach Stephan Gilling hasn’t forgotten the deep voice shouting in the second half from the stands at a quarter-full Orleans Arena in Las Vegas. He knew exactly who was yelling. It was LaVar Ball, the father of Chino Hills’ LiAngelo, LaMelo and UCLA star Lonzo.

“Double team! Double team!”

The first-year head coach had won his first nine games of the season, but after a pair of close wins at the mid-December Tarkanian Classic, the Huskies faced another test against Roosevelt (Calif.) High. They went into the locker room at half trailing by 12. Chino Hills had been double teaming Roosevelt’s shooters for the first half, but Gilling needed to make an adjustment.

“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!”
image


When Ball would shout for the double-team, Chino Hills players reluctantly followed his instruction.
emoji
Gilling would yell, “Stop trapping!”


This continued for much of the second half until, eventually, 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 embarra$s 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!’”
egg

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!’

“He pretty much downplays me at the same time. My assistant coach sees him and says to him, ‘That’s not right. Is there any middle ground?’ He says, ‘No, there’s no middle ground.’”
egg
emoji

image

This was the moment Gilling’s relationship with Ball changed for the worse, leaving the Chino Hills basketball team caught right in the middle of the season-long feud.

It wasn’t always like that.

Gilling was an assistant coach at Chino Hills under Steve Baik for two years. Together, Baik and Gilling’s staff led Chino Hills to an undefeated season and Super 25 title in 2016 with Lonzo on the roster. When Baik left for Fairfax (Calif.) before this season, Gilling was the easy choice to take over.


“Stephan was a guy who was close to the Ball family as well as me and it was a strategic hire. Both sides,” meaning Gilling and Ball, “knew what they were getting into,” Baik told USA TODAY High School Sports.
egg


As Lonzo Ball’s success at UCLA continued, Ball became more polarizing. He regularly called into sports-talk radio shows and appeared in person at Fox Sports’ Los Angeles studio. He’d claim that his eldest son is better than 2-time NBA MVP Steph Curry. He’d boast that he could beat Michael Jordan in one-on-one. He’d exchange verbal blows with NBA Hall of Famer and TNT analyst Charles Barkley. Most recently he angered LeBron James. He has refused to back down from anyone, regardless of fame or basketball stature.

Ball did not respond to request for comment from For The Win. An associate, Alan Foster, told For The Win, “We’re not talking to USA TODAY anymore.”

Ball told USA TODAY Sports last month:


“One of the things too that you have to be very careful about is when they not around you anymore as kids and they grow up to be men. Maybe they got some other alternatives in their head now … And this is basically the coach over at Chino Hills High. Now, all of the sudden, he’s 30 years old, and he’s got his own mind. He said, ‘I don’t need the Balls’ help no more. I do my own thing.’ Now, he’s having problems over there.”
egg

image

Two people around the program confirmed Gilling’s version of events but requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

After the confrontation in Las Vegas, Gilling noticed a change in LiAngelo and LaMelo Ball. He says the two looked at him differently, and he knew why.


“So, throughout the rest of the year, we had games that I would not talk to them (LaMelo and LiAngelo),” Gilling said. “The kids looked at me different. Not all of them, but some. They understood and knew they were caught in the middle of it all. It was sad for the kids because it was from that point on that they didn’t know who to listen to.

“It was also noticeable that things were being said at home, and brought back to the gym in a way of, like, they’re not listening to the coaches.”
emoji
egg

image


On March 14th, Chino Hill’s season came to an end shy of a state title. It lost, 87-80, to Bishop Montgomery in the CIF playoffs.


“I’m proud of my team. We had a great season, especially our seniors,” Gilling said. “We went 30-3. Our guys worked as hard as they can, and I’m proud of them.”
egg


For Gilling, the loss was disappointing, but it was a chance to escape Ball’s cloud, which had hovered over the program since that Dec. 19 incident in Las Vegas. He tried to reach out to Ball after the season to clear the air, but none of his calls were returned.

Then, on Monday, 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.”
egg

image

It was a disconcerting moment that compelled Gilling to publicly defend his tumultuous first year.


“I’m just trying to be positive,” Gilling said. “I’m not all that worried about what he’s saying, but I want to let the people know that it was tough throughout the whole year, starting with that one game.

“It was that much harder to bring the guys together after that game. Other than that, I’m fine. I came into this position ready to coach and do what I do. I’m still ready to continue coaching in the future for sure.”
egg


emoji
LaFather is crazy as fu*k yo
emoji


Last edited by Kyu; 03-24-2017 at 02:12 PM..



icon
best
icon
worst
0 comments

say something...

ADVERTISEMENT
Sign me up
 
 

yesterday...


most viewed right now
10
logo LeBron gets called out for stat padding
97 comments
1 day ago
@sports
most viewed right now
props+817
Image(s) inside Damn she living like that
122 comments
2 days ago
@wild'ish
most viewed right now
props+436
Video inside This is Janet Jackson. She will be 58 this year 💋
69 comments
1 day ago
@hiphop
most viewed right now
props+344
Post A Moment That Finished An Artist Career
287 comments
2 days ago
@hiphop
back to top