LaVar Ball and Adidas - Amazing

[Redbirds Fan]

Dateline Las Vegas -

Tournament in Las Vegas where LaVar Ball is coaching his Big Baller team.

He draws a technical foul from a female referee. (She was on the crew to replace the referee who gave Lavar a technical in a previous game.) Lavar gets mad, tells the crowd "We need to get someone else in here." Then Lavar threatens to take his team off the floor, as he did after arguing a foul call in a previous game, unless the female referee is replaced. Adidas, which runs the tourney, actually replaces the female referee.

Of course, being the loose canon he is, LaVar draws another technical later in the game and is ejected. Eventually the game is stopped with the non-Ballers leading 53-43, and they are declared the winners.

By condoning this behavior, what message is Adidas sending to the young teens who are playing in the tournament? If you raise enough hell you can get another referee? It is okay to quit the game if you don't like a call?

Is that the way you guys grew up playing sports?

[Mithrandir]

Fuck adidas. Fuck Ball.

Sorry i have nothing more elightenefd to add.

[chancellor]

No, but Lavar Ball is just an extreme form of a common issue absolutely haunting mid - to - high level youth sports. The parents put ridiculous amounts of pressure on coaches, and some respond like LaVar Ball, just maybe to a lesser degree. Other parents just skip the coaches and go after the umpires/referees, too.

And local rec programs wonder why they have trouble recruiting umpires/referees. A friend of mine who referees soccer and basketball in the Minneapolis area has seen his pay double in three years, and they still can't get enough refs for the programs he referees in.

And, P.S. - I hope Adidas to get SJW'd to the max on this issue.

[Redbirds Fan]

No, but Lavar Ball is just an extreme form of a common issue absolutely haunting mid - to - high level youth sports. The parents put ridiculous amounts of pressure on coaches, and some respond like LaVar Ball, just maybe to a lesser degree. Other parents just skip the coaches and go after the umpires/referees, too.

And local rec programs wonder why they have trouble recruiting umpires/referees. A friend of mine who referees soccer and basketball in the Minneapolis area has seen his pay double in three years, and they still can't get enough refs for the programs he referees in.

And, P.S. - I hope Adidas to get SJW'd to the max on this issue.

Good points. And I didn't mention that at least one of Lonzo's sons (Melo) is on the team. Lonzo seems to be a good kid, at least from the interviews I have seen, so I hope his little brothers don't develop unsportsman-like qualities.

No kidding, people used to ask me if it was tough being a judge, and I used to say "Being a judge is not as tough as being an umpire. I don't have people behind me yelling that I made a mistake."

[Sour Masher]

That he continues to be enabled is embarrassing. But I guess that is the cultural we now live in. Whiny bullies get their way, and are embraced by a disturbing number of people who buy into their brand.

[baldgriff]

Whether the referee is male or female should not even matter. The fact that Addidas made sure that the referee for technical foul 1 was replaced for gm 2 - is really crappy. Pulling a referee from the game - is inexcusable.

The person that assigned the referee's should have pulled all of the officials from the farce of a tournament.

Oh and since when do you get a win because you get ejected and cant finish the game.

Bullshit!

This coming from a 20 year softball umpire.