Of all the claims LaVar Ball has made over the last year or so, the assertion that he would beat Michael Jordan in a game of 1-on-1 may be at the top of the list of ridiculousness. The man who most consider to be the G.O.A.T. losing to a washed-up dad who could barely hack it at the college level? Please.
That hasn't stopped Ball from repeatedly doubling down on the claim, though, and boasting about how no one can beat him in a game of 1-on-1. But Jordan obviously has better things to do with his time than to humor Ball, like running a multi-billion dollar brand and overseeing an entire NBA franchise. So at this point, it seemed like we were never going to get a response on the matter from Jordan—and nobody would have blamed him for just ignoring Ball.
But during a Q&A at a camp on Monday, a curious member of the audience worked up the courage to ask Jordan what he thought about Ball's belief he could take him. Never one to back down from a challenge, Jordan finally cleared the air.
"You got to understand the source," Jordan said. "He played, I think, some college maybe. He averaged 2.2 points a game. Really? It doesn't [deserve] an answer, but I'm going to give it to you because you asked me the question: I don't think he could beat me if I was one-legged."
The king of trash talk finally had enough, I suppose. And he's 100 percent correct, because Ball couldn't hold MJ's jockstrap, whether they were in their physical primes or later in their lives.
If you couldn't tell from his ruthless Hall of Fame speech or his history of spitefully proving people wrong on the court, when Jordan wants to make a point from a basketball perspective, he gets the last laugh. Even his rivals have admitted it, like when Karl Malone told this hilarious story about Jordan dunking on former Jazz big man Mel Turpin.
I promise you, you don't want it with Jordan, LaVar. Beating him on one leg might be a bit of a stretch, but late-career Jordan made his living from the elbows, so provided he was able to get some one-legged fadeaways off, I wouldn't even count a gimpy Jordan out.
You can watch Jordan speak on the matter starting around 1:19 in the video at the top.
