This Lithuania Tourism Video For The Ball Brothers Will Probably Make LiAngelo And LaMelo Cry
Yeah I know that this video is a parody and one with an electric host at that. But as someone that has also spent a few days in the Baltics during the winter, I also know it kiiiiinda isn’t. It’s like that Cleveland honest tourism video from a few years ago (Note: Holy shit, it’s from back in 2009?!?)
Inside of every joke, is some cold hard truth. And the fact of the matter is LiAngelo and LaMelo are going from being pseudo celebs in sunny LA to basketball players getting paid Euros in cold hard Lithuania. As much as I love to drink the BBB Kool Aid, support big LaVar, and consider Lithuanians my briulakas, even I can admit that has to fucking hurt. I mean I guess all LaVar did was fast forward LiAngelo out of a few years of maybe being a rotation player in college. So Gelo only got robbed of the best 3.5 years of his life for stealing some sunglasses. LaMelo on the other hand gets to spend the golden ages of 16-18 in Lithuania and wherever else pays LaVar. If I was Gelo or Melo, I would do that thing kids do where they grab onto every wall or bannister in my house before I got in the car and drove to LAX. Because watching that video took me back to being in Latvia where half the people didn’t speak English and even more wanted no part of me interviewing them.
You know what the 2nd most spoken language in Lithuania is? Russian. FUCCCCCCCCK that. Russian is a terrifying language to have spoken to you. And the reason Russian is so popular in Lithuania is because Russians ran train on the everything East of the Baltic Sea during the Cold War. What do you think will happen to the Balls if all this Trump-Russia shit leads to an actual hot war? Moscow is like a 2 hour plane ride from Lithuania. You think Putin won’t know where the most famous Americans in Lithuania are at any given moment? If you are one of the Ball kids, you need to jump onto a basketball or something until your ankle breaks ASAP. Trust me, those Baltic winters are no fucking joke.
On the bright side at least the locals seem….excited? I guess singing about maple trees in Lithuania means you are happy?
The spinzone to all this is that no players in the U.S. will be grinding harder to get a spot on an NBA team than LiAngelo and LaMelo. Nothing lights a fire under a players ass than a hard language barrier, cold weather, and shitty food. I’m pretty sure John Wooden said that.
P.S. I heard the guys on The Rundown talk about how much Baltic and Mediterranean suck in Monopoly. Little Clem fun fact for you guys. I once won a game of Monopoly because I had the only Monopoly on the board. That monopoly? Baltic and Mediterranean. Maybe the most impressive thing I have ever done in my life (Even though just finishing a game of Monopoly probably cracks the Top 50).
h/t Mantas