Zion Williamson and LaMelo Ball are unquestionably the two most famous high school basketball players in the world. Williamson rose to notoriety due to his incredible dunking ability, while the youngest Ball brother already has Stephen Curry commenting on his high school highlights.
LaMelo Ball vs. Zion Williamson drew cops, NBA stars, and an oversold gym
The game was nearly canceled due to the size of the crowd.
Ricky O'Donnell has covered basketball at all levels for more than a decade at SB Nation. He’s currently the Associate Director of Programming.
On Wednesday night, they played each other in Las Vegas at an Adidas-sponsored event.
With LaVar Ball coaching his son’s Big Ballers team, the stage was set for a spectacle. That’s exactly what happened: The gym was so packed police officers had to barricade the doors and push back against a standing-room-only crowd that was reportedly filing in seven rows deep. The game was in jeopardy of being canceled due to fire code violations.
Adidas-sponsored NBA stars like Damian Lillard and Andrew Wiggins, as well as LaMelo’s older brother Lonzo Ball, were all sitting courtside. The atmosphere in the gym was drawing comparisons to the crowds LeBron James used to draw as a high school player. Just check out this scene over an hour before tipoff:
The game even scared James away:
The hype only got bigger when the players were finally let on the court. A live stream of the game at Ball is Life was drawing over 80,000 viewers. You can watch full highlights of the game here:
Everyone was tuning in to see Williamson do his thing:
The LaVar factor only boosted the intrigue. He was in .... pretty standard form before the game:
The matchup had the perfect storm to create a circus atmosphere. It took place on the final week of live evaluation period, which meant college coaches were in the gym. It had a legitimate celebrity in LaVar Ball coaching one team. It also had two legitimate stars in LaMelo Ball and Williamson.
In case you were wondering, none of this is normal.
It’s hard to remember a high school game with this much hype. It mostly lived up to expectations:
The fans even stormed the court when it was over:
Williamson’s team won, 104-92. No one is going to remember the outcome, but it will be hard to forget the spectacle.
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