midnight, a private message on Twitter triggered a great "big adventure" between the Ball family. The two sons of the Ball family will leave the United States and go to Prienai (Prienai; Lithuanian City) of Lithuanian , which also just shows the strong influence of sports celebrities on the sports industry.
Erikas Kirvelaitis, 21, is a Lithuanian basketball journalist. At around 1:30 a.m. on December 6, he sent a private message to Harrison Gaines (a sports agent in Los Angeles, whose clients include the second and youngest sons of the Ball family): Are Liangelo Ball and LaMelo Ball interested in playing professional basketball in Boqinai?
Liangelo Ball (pictured left) and LaMelo Ball (pictured right)
Prienu Vytautas is a small team in the Lithuanian basketball league that had hired Kirvelaitis to do some part-time team liaison jobs several months ago. The bosses of Kirvelaitis did not know that he had posted such a private message on Twitter at first. Overall, this is just a random try without any hope.
But to Kirvelaitis's shock, Gaines then replied to him and asked for more information. Less than a week later, the two American teenagers signed a contract with the Prienu Vytautas team, thousands of miles away, and the brothers will begin their careers in this simple and unpretentious small town.
"Our team was able to contact them, it was like a dream, it was so crazy, it was a miracle," Kirvelaitis sighed. "But I firmly believe that as long as you are willing to try, anything can be done."
21-year-old Erikas Kirvelaitis is a part-time reporter of the Prienu Vytautas team
Even though the Lithuanian people are not sure what the two teenagers are, they quickly realized that something big happened. Lithuania is a country where basketball is popular, and the attention to this sport suddenly turned to these two people.
In the next few days, the Lithuanian will learn the following basic information: The two brothers who come to play are called Lian Gelo, the older one is called Lian Gelo, the younger one is called Lamelo, and the younger one is 16 years old. The two brothers also have a eldest brother named Lonzo Ball, an NBA rookie, and now serves as the starting point guard of the Los Angeles Lakers. The father of two young men is Laval. He has become a celebrity in his own way in the past year. The last time he made the headlines was because he angrily criticized US President Trump on Twitter.
Althea Cawley-Murphree, an official at the U.S. Embassy in Lithuania, said: "It (the two brothers from the ball family come to play) is a hot topic in the country now."
Lavar Ball (pictured left) tweeted with US President Donald Trump a month ago. These two teenagers cannot be said to be true fame now, they can only be said to be close to the status of fame, and scouts also expressed doubts about the actual performance of the two in the game. But for Vytautas, a small team that is deeply trapped in financial quagmire, it is enough for the two to help the team increase their attention, attract sponsors and sell more tickets.
"One of the brothers (Lamelo) has almost the same followers on Instagram as the total population of Lithuania," said Adomas Kubilius, head of the team. "It looked like a joke at the beginning, and people were having fun with this topic," he paused for a second, shrugged, and continued, "but now it's a serious matter."
The night the two brothers signed, Kubilius was woken up by a phone call at 2 a.m., and the team's sports director Vilius Vaitkevicius told the brothers about the signing. Social media was then filled with reports about the news.
"The whole world knows us," Vaitkevicius said on the phone, revealing excitement in his words.
The two Ball brothers plan to arrive in Lithuania on January 4th and will usher in their debut in 5 days.Bochine is located on the banks of the Neman River, with a total population of about 9,000. The arrival of the brothers also shocked the people of this small town.
There are only a few restaurants in this small town, and after the news spread, one of them also changed the text in the restaurant's LED light sign with the following sentence:
"TANGO Pizza Shop welcomes the Ball family to Boqina!!!!"
A restaurant in Boqina uses LED light signs to welcome the arrival of the Ball brothers
At a snow-covered intersection, the words in the light sign flashed red, setting off the lazy street atmosphere.
Jaunius Malisauskas is the owner of Tango pizza restaurant. He, his wife Dovile, and other employees plan to welcome these two Americans from afar in a special way.
"We thought maybe we could provide them with a VIP exclusive dining table where they could come and eat at any time," Malisauskas said on Saturday night, as waiters came and went in the restaurant to serve customers with just-made thin-crust pies. The stadium of
Vytautas is built on an irregular foundation. The overall color of the stadium is monotonous and looks like a box. On Saturday, Vytautas welcomed the league-ranked team Zalgiris Kaunas at the stadium, when all 1,500 seats in the stadium were almost full. There was a table of snacks on the stalls in the stadium, including wedge-shaped bread slices, fried crispy and served with some garlic to taste. Across the aisle is a huge steel barrel with porridge made of cereals. A woman is selling porridge, and she has sold many bowls in this game.
Fans watched the game at the Vytautas home stadium
Inside the stadium, a small cheerleader made a noise to the rhythm of the drums. Between the competition, cheerleaders danced in flowing white skirts, decorated with ribbons in the color of Lithuanian flag.
On the other side of , the Neman River , there is a small town called Birstonas. There is a high-end hot spring hotel in the small town, which has various activities and is full of vitality. At the same time, this hotel will also serve as the residence of the two brothers Ball. The tourists walked slowly through the hall in white bathrobes and slippers, and came to the fragrant underground swimming pool and sauna. In the hotel's restaurant, a live band plays classics from the old-fashioned jazz and Red Hot Chili Peppers (a well-known rock band in Los Angeles, USA).
Vytautas' youngest player is Bartas, 18 years old. His father, Rolandas Aleksandravicius, said when referring to the two brothers: "We are not clear about what they feel here, but we will do our best to make the brothers feel like home. We are not like those third world countries (poor conditions). In addition to basketball, we have beautiful natural scenery and beautiful girls. We hope they can succeed."
Last Saturday, a choir played the Lithuanian national anthem before the start of the Vytautas match with Zalgiris Kauna. Speaking of the development level of the city of Boqina and other cities in the world, many of the local residents were full of self-deprecating words. But some residents also said that the condescending self-deprecation of the small town has indeed caused them harm.
"For me, the attention on this aspect has already made me tired," said Botchonide Mayor Alvydas Vaicekauskas. "There have been a lot of sarcastic remarks about the small town of Bochina. People may feel it is far away, as if it exists on the edge of the world.
Last week, an American player named Billy Baron (who played a professional basketball league in Lithuania) broke an interesting news to multiple media outlets, and then the anecdote spread quickly in the United States: After the team's training, Virginijus Seskus, the coach of the Vytautas team, would go to the store to put a batch of meat in the trunk and sell it.
"I can tell you the story about this meat," Seskus said in an interview on Sunday, eager to clarify the seemingly true fake news.
He said the truth is this: There is a store in Boqina that makes traditional meat foods, and some of their products are very delicious, such as lasiniai (a meat product) and smoked fat pork. He coached at a team in Vilnius (the capital of Lithuania), and Barron happened to be a member of the team. At that time, some of the team members would often ask him to help bring some meat from Boqina.
"There is a guy who often asks me to help him, 'Coach, please help bring some meat back,'" Seskus said. "If someone asks me for something, I will help. My wife often complains about me. 'If you can be half as good to your family as you are to others, we will be content.' But then again, I will help them bring meat back, and they will pay the money themselves." Virginijus Seskus, the head coach of the team of
Vytautas, is 50 years old and a veteran in Lithuanian basketball. He is well-known for his fierce words and humorous style on the sidelines. Seskus insisted that the language barrier between his brothers and Ball was not a big problem, it was easy to overcome, and that his English skills were not as bad as others said.
"If you don't use Lithuanian , some of my jokes can't be said," he said in Lithuanian. Before he was about to switch to English for an interview, he also said, "But I still have two weeks to go (learning English better)." The
Vytautas team was beaten up by Zalgiris Kauna team, and during this game, Seskus kept walking on the sidelines, shouting with all his strength, all the displeasure was fully reflected through his four-limb movements. He was arguing fiercely with the team's captain Eigirdas Zukauskas throughout the second half of the game, and was often shouting against his face.
injury impact, Vytautas team has only 8 players rotated. Seskus then joked that the brothers missed a good opportunity, otherwise they would be able to play now. Although Laval publicly accused his sons of coaching at home, which also attracted criticism, Seskus still expressed his interest in meeting the fathers of the two brothers.
Vytautas (white jersey) had only 8 rotation players in the game with Zalgiris Kauna (green jersey)
Laval is 50 years old. Many American sports fans first heard his name earlier this year. At that time, Laval was not shockingly dead and boldly said that he could defeat the "God of Basketball" Michael Jordan (Michael Jordan). Since then, he has also starred in a reality show with his whole family, establishing a sports brand for his sons - "Big Baller Brand".
Laval's second son Lian Gelo accompanied the team to Hangzhou, China to participate in the competition. As a result, he and two teammates were accused of stealing by an LV store in Hangzhou. Trump expressed his concern to China when he visited China, and the three of them were released. However, in an interview with the media, Laval publicly stated that the release of his second son had nothing to do with Trump, and said that stealing was "not serious". Trump was very "angry" in response to this and posted two tweets to condemn the remarks, saying that Laval was "unhappy" and "he should have left them in prison and ignored them!"
For the small team Vytautas, these are quite attractive events. "I think he is an excellent businessman," Kubilius said of Laval. "In a country where what you do is hard to surprise the public, he successfully raised his family's reputation to a high level, and the brand he runs is now very popular."
The two Ball brothers signed with the Vytautas team
Whether the trip to Lithuania is a good move or a farce, it seems to have become a model of case studies for perceived value and the influence of modern celebrities.
For the Ball brothers, this exotic trip is just to test the international market. The contract between the two will expire in May next year, when both parties have the right to terminate the contract in the next month.
For Vytautas, the team's goal is to use the "fame" of the two brothers to increase exposure.After signing a contract with the two brothers, the team immediately recruited a new sponsor and has been in talks with several others. Kubilius revealed that the tickets for the two Ball brothers' debut were sold very quickly on January 9, and the club also decided to raise the ticket price from 3 euros to 8 euros. In addition, the club has recruited five more people to help the original employees share a lot of marketing work today.
"Lamero Ball has more than 3 million followers on Instagram; while Golden State Warriors' Drummond Green (Draymond Green) is only 2.7 million," Kirvelaitis said, explaining his motivation for sending private messages to Gaines. "They are both young and talented players. In addition, their market is huge."
statement: This article is compiled by Lazy Bear Sports from The New York Times, and the original author is Andrew Keh.
extended reading:
The second and third brothers of the ball family will go to Lithuania to play basketball, with a monthly salary of less than $500 NBA prospects unknown
The rise of the ball family: ball father How to cultivate the three brothers of the ball family?
