'I'm just not gonna go around saying thank you:' LaVar Ball's CNN interview was wild

LaVar Ball's interview with Chris Cuomo on CNN Monday was a hell of a thing.

The infamous basketball father appeared on CNN to talk about his ongoing feud with President Trump over the release of his son from China — and the discussion began with a contentious exchange and then escalated throughout the segment.

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First, the backstory: 

LaVar Ball is the father of Los Angeles Lakers point guard Lonzo Ball, whose two younger brothers are also famous for being good at basketball (and for being members of the Ball family). The elder Ball is like a lot of parents you meet at little league games who can't stop shouting about how good their kid is, except Ball's kids are actually good and instead of shouting from rusty bleachers, LaVar often shouts from ESPN as a commentator.

And while Lonzo Ball is in the NBA, the Ball child that's currently dominating the news cycle is LiAngelo, Lonzo's younger (but not youngest) brother, who plays basketball at UCLA. Before the season began, LiAngelo and two other teammates said they shoplifted during a team trip to China. 

They were arrested on Nov. 8, accused of stealing designer sunglasses, and detained in their Hangzhou hotel for several days. They were finally released and traveled home to the U.S. after Trump spoke to China president Xi Jinping. They were also suspended from the team.

On Friday, when LaVar was asked about Trump's involvement, he responded, "who?"

Trump did not like this, and of course he kept the conversation going on Twitter over the weekend.

Finally on Monday, LaVar went on CNN to chat with Chris Cuomo about the ordeal. And let's just say the two have different reference points for a discussion about the Trump-China-LiAngelo affair.

Here are some of the most "fun" quotes, below. 

"It may seem like I'm ducking, but I don't duck nobody."

This is only good because it's LaVar doing his own version of The Donald. 

"I don't even tweet."

One wonders why LaVar doesn't tweet. He generates a ton of ESPN headlines as it is, so you'd have to imagine that, with a Twitter account...

"President Argues With Father of Lakers Point Guard on Twitter" would be a very 2017 headline.

"It's not like he was in the U.S. and said, 'OK, there's three kids in China, I need to go over there and get them.'"

Here, the elder Ball wanted to make it clear that he does not view Trump as the white knight of the situation.

"Let him do his political affairs and let me handle my son and let's just stay in our lane."

While the sentiment sounds fine to me, Trump was far outside his lane the moment he entered the Republican presidential primary as a former reality TV star that no-one initially expected to win.

"Tell Donald Trump to have a great Thanksgiving"

I'm not entirely sure Cuomo will be able to deliver that message in person, but maybe he knows someone over at Fox who can say it on air so the president will see it. 

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