LaVar Ball was on CNN. How did we get here?

LaVar Ball went on CNN Tonight with Don Lemon on Monday night and engaged in a bizarre interview with Chris Cuomo. He continued to hedge on thanking the president for helping his son, LiAngelo Ball, get home after he was detained for shoplifting in China.

“If I feel nobody did anything; I don’t have to go around saying thank you to everybody,” LaVar said. “Just because people say things [doesn’t mean] it’s supposed to be true. ‘Hey, I stopped them from [doing 10 years in prison]. Maybe we were doing some talking with some other people before [president Trump] even got there.”

His middle son, LiAngelo Ball, also a freshman basketball player at UCLA, was caught shoplifting with two other teammates while overseas in China. The three players could have served more than 10 years in Chinese jail but were eventually released and sent home. Their release came after President Trump spoke to Chinese President Xi Jinping while on a trip in Asia.

“I had a great conversation with [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping],” Trump said on Nov. 14, according to Noah Bierman of The Los Angeles Times. “What they did was unfortunate. You know, you’re talking about very long prison sentences. They do not play games.”

Xi “was terrific, and they’re working on it right now,” Trump continued. “And hopefully everything is going to work out.”

Everything eventually did work out. LiAngelo and his teammates were freed and flew home, only to be suspended indefinitely by UCLA. When the players returned to the United States, president Trump publicly questioned whether they would be thankful for his role in their freedom:

UCLA held a press conference where the players apologized for their actions and, indeed, did thank the president for helping them get home:

To which the president responded:

But LaVar Ball issued no such apology, which rubbed the president the wrong way. In fact, he downplayed president Trump’s role in getting LiAngelo back home.

“Who?” LaVar told ESPN’s Arash Markazi on Nov. 18, when asked about Trump’s involvement in the matter. “What was he over there for? Don’t tell me nothing. Everybody wants to make it seem like he helped me out.”

The president’s response? He should have left the players in jail:

Here are some of the best moments from the bizarre interview that lasted over 20 minutes.

LaVar said his son’s decision wouldn’t go without punishment, but also made sure to note LiAngelo is an 18-year-old kid who simply made a bad decision at a bad time:

“I’ve seen 16- and 17-year-old kids have to go to jail for life, that were my friends, doing bad things, making bad decisions. I mean, doing things that are harming people,” he said. “The way I look at it was, OK he shoplifted. He wasn’t physical. He returned it. He fessed up to it. It wasn’t like he was like, ‘nah, I didn’t take it.’ Nobody got hurt. He didn’t run up in there with the assumption of, ‘hey I can’t wait to get to China ‘cause I’m gonna get some good stuff.’

“It was an impulse thing: a bad decision at a bad time. An 18-year-old who’s never done anything wrong. Never been late to class, 4.0 student. I don’t think people are gonna demean him over one bad decision, concerning that it was victimless. He didn’t grab nobody’s arm. He didn’t do nothing. He tried to slide something away, understood what he did. It’s not going without punishment, but I don’t think you should come down on the kid for making one mistake.”

“Do I think the president helped? I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know. You can say what you want. I didn’t see him talk. I don’t care and I don’t know. I wasn’t there. I’m not gonna say nothing I don’t know, and I don’t see and I don’t hear.

“If he said he helped, that’s good for his mind. If you helped, you shouldn’t have to say anything. If I helped somebody, I don’t walk around saying, ‘you know I helped you now.’ Come on now, gimme some love. I helped you.’ Somebody told me about [the president’s tweet] a couple days ago. I don’t even tweet, I’m just saying why is that on your mind? All of this stuff going on and that’s on your mind, that a father didn’t say thank you? And you’re the head of the U.S.? Come on. You not even talking about what I’m doing.

“There’s a lot of other things that’s going on. Let him do his political affairs, and let me handle my son and let’s just stay in our lane.”

Cuomo and Ball debated back and forth over the importance (or lack thereof) of the words “thank you.” You know where this one’s heading:

This just might be the end of the LaVar Ball-Donald Trump saga. Then again, if we know anything about both of them, it’s never the end.