The middle Ball brother seems to have swerved and bent the corner into a new, and highly-profitable, career venture.
LiAngelo Ball, known for his time riding G League benches and finding himself in the limelight in part due to his familial affiliations, has translated his less-than-successful NBA tenure into a full-fledged music career.
ESPN's Shams Charania reported on Monday that Ball put pen to paper on an $8 million record deal with Def Jam and Universal Music Group, with the contract escalating to as much as $13 million. In other words, exponentially more than he would've made had he kept trying for a career on the hardwood.
Additionally, the deal gives Ball full ownership of his music and his own record label — a groundbreaking move for an artist with, according to Spotify, one song.
Ball's rise up the charts came suddenly last week after he dropped his debut song "Tweaker" under the artist name "G3 GELO," which has already reached over 15 million streams on Spotify and is ranked 29th on iTunes' download charts, as of Monday.
The track has been top of mind across the NBA and all over the internet for the past week, with social teams using up as much of its clout as possible.
Even the Detroit Pistons, who waived Ball in 2020 after signing him to an Exhibit 10 with the team, got in on the fun.
And if basketball teams weren't enough, even the Ottawa Senators (what possible correlation could there be here?) got in on the action.
NBA athletes have been trying to make waves in the rap game for some time now, with players like Damian Lillard (Dame D.O.L.L.A.), Miles Bridges (RTB MB) and even LiAngelo's brother Lonzo Ball getting in on the action. But no player has gotten the attention, and contract, that G3 GELO received with his trunk-knocking banger.
After LiAngelo went unselected in the 2018 NBA draft, he signed training camp deals with a couple of teams — including the Pistons and Hornets — but he never secured a spot on an active regular-season roster.
In 2021, LiAngelo joined the Greensboro Swarm, an NBA G League team, where he averaged 4.4. points and 1.1 rebounds in 31 games.
Despite not being good enough to make it on a roster featuring guys like Isaiah Thomas, Jalen McDaniel and Mason Plumlee, he now joins a roster featuring superstars like Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Pusha T and 2 Chainz.
Before his three sons made it to the NBA, the notorious LaVar Ball, patriarch of the Ball family, made a bold assertion about the trio, saying that Lonzo (the eldest) was the best at the time, LaMelo (the youngest) would become the best and that LiAngelo had the most potential.
The middle son never stepped onto an NBA court, spending most of his time in the G League. So it might not be what LaVar had in mind, but LiAngelo might finally be starting to make true on that potential.
LiAngelo made sure to take the time to thank his pops in "Tweaker": Shoutout to my father, he made sure I'll make it farther.
-- With files from the Associated Press
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