Lavar Ball might have just extended his undefeated streak.
On Friday, ESPN.com published a full timeline of what happened during UCLA's preseason trip to China when three players — including LiAngelo Ball — were arrested and accused of stealing sunglasses from a Louis Vuitton store, and other items from other nearby shops. Included in the report was a litany of specific details that was previously not public knowledge including: what was stolen, how the players were bailed out of jail and details of the players' "captivity" in their hotel.
Probably one of the more interesting findings of the report, however, was how it differed from the statements made by President Donald Trump — along with other White House staff — and how it confirmed some of the supposed outlandish comments LaVar Ball made in the aftermath of the incident.
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According to a New York Times article titled "How Trump Helped Liberate U.C.L.A. ‘Knuckleheads’ From China," the president found out about the UCLA players' arrests just before his meeting with the president of China. (He would later clarify on Nov. 14 that he first heard about the incident "two days ago.") Trump claimed he talked to President Xi Jinping at the scheduled dinner and was told the situation was being taken care of. Chief of Staff John Kelly later said both Trump and State Department diplomats helped reduce the charges handed to the players, and their eventual release from a hotel were the players were on house arrest.
But the ESPN report cites team sources that contradict this claim:
"The situation was already resolved by the time we heard about Trump’s involvement,” one team source said. “That’s not to take away from the fact that he got involved, but the players already had their passports back and their flights booked to go home Tuesday night when Gen. Kelly called the players.”
“The players were already checked into the hotel before the public discovered they were arrested,” a team source said. “They also were not under house arrest. It was our decision to keep them at the hotel until the situation was resolved. The charges were dropped, they weren’t reduced, and that happened two days before we heard from Gen. Kelly.”
Basically, the players were arrested after they confessed to their respective thefts. They were then escorted by police to return the stolen items after they were bailed out of jail.
When authorities realized that the actions were just run-of-the-mill mistakes made by teenagers, they dropped the shoplifting charges and gave the players permission to wander freely throughout the city as tourists. The catch was that police would keep the players' passports until a week after the arrest so that it didn't look like they got off too easy. This was agreed to by Nov. 7, five days before UCLA representatives were contacted by White House officials. It's worth noting that the White House has yet to comment on this timeline.
Still, after his initial comments on the incident, Trump sent out a tweet asking if the players were ever going to thank him for helping them get home. They immediately did, as advised by the team in order to avoid conflict with the president. LaVar Ball, on the other hand, explicitly did not thank the president.
LaVar Ball, the father of a basketball player freed from China who also recently ran afoul of President Trump on Twitter, talks with @ChrisCuomo: "I don't have to go around saying thank you to everybody" https://t.co/Y1HRSycqyD pic.twitter.com/a7in4bLogG
— CNN (@CNN) November 21, 2017
In that same interview, Ball said in his defense of his son that the shoplifting was "an impulse thing, a bad decision at a bad time, that's all it was for an 18-year-old who never done anything wrong." UCLA team sources told ESPN.com the Chinese police acted under that mindset when dealing with the players.
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Trump did not take the comments lightly. He doubled down on his statements, saying that he should have left the players in jail and that China told them why they were released to go home — again, both statements proven untrue in the ESPN report.
Ball then went on ESPN to make it clear how little the president was involved.
"Who?" Ball told ESPN when asked about Trump's role in the situation. "What was he over there for? Don't tell me nothing. Everybody wants to make it seem like he helped me out."
While this comment drew criticism from many — like White House Director of Social Media and Assistant to the President Dan Savino — it's becoming more and more clear that Ball's words proved to be more correct than Trump's, meaning that Ball's famous words ring true: "One-on-one, I’m undefeated. Never lost!"
On Saturday, Ball commented on the latest report through his Twitter account by calling out Trump once again.
Thank you for what again @realDonaldTrump ? #knowyourfacts #stayinyolane pic.twitter.com/em082MaSBo
— Lavar Ball (@Lavarbigballer) March 3, 2018