For the first time, the Lithuanian professional basketball team for which LaMelo and LiAngelo Ball played this winter has spoken up—and the squad isn't happy with the Ball family. In a press release titled "Big Baller Brand tried to destroy the club," the team—BC Prienai-Skycop—detailed how it has struggled on the court and fallen into a financial crisis as a result, it says, of the Balls' stint.
The release states that Big Baller Brand—the corporate extension of LaVar Ball, the family patriarch—viewed the team as "a joke." It refers to the Balls as "reality show stars" and says they joined the squad "only to breathe life into their dying TV show."
"The first and most crucial mistake we made was allowing them, especially LaVar, think that they are in charge of the club—its decisions, its plans and even the game," said head coach Virginijus Seskus in the release. "His boys where [sic] nowhere near the level of the LKL, let alone NBA, which league obviously understands, seeing the draft outcome. And the most disappointing fact was that they had no inner drive to become better. And when they saw it was going nowhere, they started destroying the club, not paying out prize money to the Big Baller Brand tournament winners."
Skycop Brienai, formerly known as Vytautus Prienai-Birstonas, finished in last in the LKL, which the team attributes to "the way Ball brothers & LaVar were behaving in and outside the court."
The Balls played for the squad from early January to late March, at which point LiAngelo declared for the NBA Draft and LaMelo joined his father in the new Junior Basketball Association, which LiAngelo has since joined as well.
The release goes on to detail how the team has fallen into difficult financial circumstances.
"After leaving the club without any prior notice and by taking back their financial support including shooting machines that were presented as gifts to the club, BBB has left Prienai without sponsorship and base for future planning," it states.
In the release, the team also announced it has signed two new brothers: 38-year-old Darjus and Ksistof Lavrinovic, the tallest twin pro basketball players on earth (they're both 6'11").
