LaVar Ball is already recruiting LeBron James to the Lakers in free agency

Rumors of Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James’ interest in joining the Los Angeles Lakers next summer have been widespread all summer.

So far they’ve mostly centered on how James makes his offseason home in Los Angeles and his entertainment interests, but after Lonzo Ball’s father, LaVar Ball, was done calling Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid dumb and injury prone, he had a different pitch for James.

“If he joins the Lakers he’ll finish his career as a champion,” Ball told TMZ Sports.

If James did team up with a player like Paul George along with Lonzo Ball and the rest of the Lakers’ young core next summer, the team would certainly be good. Would they be winning titles if the Golden State Warriors stay together? Probably not, but things happen and the team should of course take its best shot at making that pipe-dream happen.

Interesting to note, however, is that we have concrete evidence that LaVar may not exactly be the best pitch-man for James, and his presence may not help the Lakers in general.

If James went back to Cleveland after Dan Gilbert’s stupid letter the night he left in 2010 anything is possible, but it’s worth noting that he and LaVar have issues. Their tiff dates back to when the Big Baller Dad said he was more prepared to help his kids reach the NBA than James was with his own children, leading to James dropping this quote (via Dave McMenamin of ESPN):

“Keep my kids’ name out of your mouth, keep my family out of your mouth,” James said. “This is dad to dad. It's a problem now."

So... Yeah. LaVar’s pitch may not help, but he did speak Lonzo making the Lakers into existence, which means he’s one-for-one so far, so maybe we can’t doubt him yet.

Harrison Faigen is co-host of the Locked on Lakers podcast (subscribe here), and you can follow him on Twitter at @hmfaigen.