Former JBA player claims LaVar Ball's league cut off contact after reneging on promised checks
If LaVar Ball really wants his Junior Basketball Association to challenge the current player development system, its paychecks are going to need to come on time.
That doesn’t appear to be the case according to at least one account, as former JBA player Brandon Phillips claimed the league only paid him a third of what it promised him, per Cycle sportswriter Thomas Duffy.
Former JBA player Brandon Phillips (@itsbphilly) tells me the league only paid him about 1/3 of what he was promised.
Had to pay for his own bags on every flight, so he saved nothing.
Owed two more checks but nobody’s returning his calls.
Gave up his eligibility for ~$1000.
— Thomas Duffy (@TJDhoops) August 16, 2018
Phillips discussed the case in the replies of Duffy’s tweet, saying that he can provide screenshots of messages from other players that can back up his account.
Never said anything about Lavar ball, he wasn’t traveling with us. The league has been great to a lot of kids. But in my case not so much and i don’t know what players you’ve talked to but i can provide screenshots of players on my team who also got cut backing up my statements.
— Brandon Phillips (@itsbphilly) August 16, 2018
It wasn’t based on skill or anything biased, we were told that if we had to pay for our bags we would be reimbursed at end of the season and i just haven’t been reimbursed
— Brandon Phillips (@itsbphilly) August 16, 2018
Yes but i was cut after 4 games and it has been over a month Alan and other JBA representatives ive reached out to have stopped texting emailing and calling me back
— Brandon Phillips (@itsbphilly) August 16, 2018
Players were told that low-end salaries in the JBA would come in around $3,000, which seems to be what Phillips was told he would be paid. Phillips gave up his college eligibility to play for the Los Angeles Ballers, but was let after four games when LiAngelo Ball joined the Ballers and proceeded to make a mockery of the league. Phillips had scored 11 points total and hauled in six rebounds at the time according to the league’s site.
News of Ball creating a league to compete with the NCAA for the nation’s young talent was met with a combination of skepticism and laughter, but stories like Phillips’, if true, show the darker side of a league that seems designed primarily for the benefit of its founder’s children. It’s hard to know if Phillips had any chance to play in college, but shredding his eligibility for $1,000 is a bad deal if he had even one scholarship offer.
It has shocked no one that the JBA’s attendance has been sparse at best, just look at the crowd in the background of one of its games. The league still charges up the nose for tickets, per USA Today, for a level of competition that is supremely lacking compared to college ball and its Big Baller Brand merchandise is infamously overpriced.
Add in the possibility that the league isn’t paying its players what they were promised and you have another blow to its legitimacy over just $2,000, leaving a very fair question of how long it can survive.
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