If everybody’s breaking the rules, it’s time for the rules themselves to change.
Lonzo Ball shared that message with the Los Angeles media Friday, hours after more high-profile college basketball programs, such as Duke and Kentucky, found themselves in the crosshairs of the NCAA corruption scandal that has rocked the sport for months. The report linked current and former college players to NBA agent Andy Miller, who has been accused of paying players under the table against the NCAA’s amateur athlete rules.
Ball, who has denied accepting bribes from NBA agents during his one season at UCLA, pushed the agenda for college hoops players to be legally compensated for their contributions to their respective athletic programs and universities.
“I do,” Ball told reporters, when asked if the NCAA should pay its players. “All the money they generate for the programs and stuff, it’s kind of an unfair system. Everybody knows everybody’s getting paid and that’s how it is.
“Everybody’s getting paid anyway. You might as well make it legal. That’s how I feel.”
The Lakers rookie, returning to the court Friday night against the Mavericks after missing 15 games with an MCL sprain, backed up his argument with the “one-and-done” trend that has become expected of NBA prospects, like him, who simply need to fulfill the NBA’s one-year college requirement.
“My dad’s not big on that,” Ball said about taking money from agents, “so just kinda focused on going there and getting out.”
Ball’s larger-than-life father, LaVar, spoke up in September, soon after the first hammer dropped in the NCAA bribery scandal, to assure none of his three basketball-playing sons have accepted illegal payments, though they received offers “every summer.”
“They keep coming every summer to get me to say ‘yes,’” he said at the time. “They offered you money, they offered to take care of the AAU team, they’re gonna give everybody uniforms, everybody shoes. I mean, it’s just, any kind of way.”
The most recent findings in the FBI’s investigation into college basketball reportedly found more than 20 programs to be involved. One player, San Diego State’s Malik Pope, has been suspended since the report surfaced Friday morning, while other schools have denied any wrongdoing.