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Lithuanian citizens don't seem to care much about LiAngelo and LaMelo Ball (Video)

Sam Cooper
·College football writer

LiAngelo and LaMelo Ball are certainly in for some culture shock when they arrive to play professional basketball in Lithuania next month.

The younger brothers of Los Angeles Lakers point guard Lonzo Ball signed on to play with Vytautas Prienai instead of continuing to play in the United States. LiAngelo, 19, withdrew from UCLA early in his freshman year after his arrest for shoplifting in China while LaMelo, 16, left high school before his junior year to be homeschooled. Behind it all is outspoken father LaVar Ball, who is all over the airwaves in the States. But the Ball family, outside of the basketball community, doesn’t seem to hold much weight in Lithuania.

Just check out the Big Baller excitement on the ground in Prienai:

Beyond the general disinterest from the citizens, club director Adomas Kubilius touting the town’s internet connection as a selling point was especially hilarious:

Vilius Vaitkevicius, the club’s sports director, said the Ball brothers will live at the “Vytautas Mineral SPA,” which looks like a really nice place. In fact, Pravalturas, a fictitious travel agency, offered a hilarious look at where the Ball brothers are headed:

Even the luxury of the spa they’ll be living at might not account for the change from American culture. Just ask former Wisconsin standout Ben Brust, who played in the same league last year.

He explained his experience to Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Eisenberg:

Hardly anyone in the 7,500-person village of Pasvalys spoke English. Restaurants typically only served traditional Lithuanian dishes unrecognizable to Brust. He and American teammates Michael Dixon Jr. and Alex Oriakhi had to drive 30 to 40 minutes to the nearest big city to find a mall, a grocery store or restaurants that offered American fare.

Only the premier teams in Europe can afford the charter flights and high-end hotels that major-conference American college teams take for granted. Brust’s team bused or ferried to games in Latvia, Estonia and Finland and saved money by staying in bargain hotels.

“My American teammates and I would literally count down the days until we got back to America,” Brust said. “It was always cold and dark. There are only like 5 or 6 hours of sunlight every day, and you’re in a gym for half of it. It’s a good basketball league, but there are plenty of other places in Europe that I would much prefer to live.”

Toronto Raptors big man Jonas Valanciunas, one of two Lithuanian players in the NBA, had a different perspective. He said the Ball brothers have a “great opportunity” ahead of them and that it’s big news that they signed to play in the Lithuanian League.

“It’s high-level basketball, so we’ll see how they’re gonna do,” he said. “The sky’s the limit. Basketball is everywhere. Every country is playing basketball, Lithuania included. We have great basketball history. We’re such a small country, but we have many, many great players.”

Like LaMelo, Valanciunas also began his professional career at age 16. He said they just have to work hard.

“It’s all about working. Talent is one thing, but how much work you put in — that’s going to show up.”


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Sam Cooper is a writer for the Yahoo Sports blogs. Have a tip? Email him or follow him on Twitter!