Lavar Ball’s “Billion Dollar” Cannabis Startup Goes Up In Smoke Faster Than His NBA Career
Alright, gather ‘round, children. Pull up a chair, pour yourself a Monster Energy drink, and let me tell you a story about hubris, bad business, and a man who has somehow convinced an entire generation that being loud is the same thing as being right. You know his name. You’ve seen the quotes. You’ve probably laughed at the hairline.
Lavar Ball, the human megaphone who promised his son Lonzo would be better than Michael Jordan and that the Big Baller Brand would be the Nike of our generation, has finally found a new hill to die on. And surprise, surprise, it’s a flaming dumpster fire.
According to reports that hit the wire this morning, Lavar’s latest “visionary” venture—a cannabis company called “Ball’s Blazing Buds” (I’m 90% sure that’s not the real name, but it’s what my soul wants it to be)—has officially gone up in smoke. And I’m not talking about the good kind of smoke. I’m talking about the kind of smoke where you’re standing in the parking lot of a strip mall in Chino Hills, watching your last $47,000 worth of vape cartridges get repossessed by a guy named Chad.
Let’s back up, because this is peak 2020s American tragedy.
You see, our favorite loudmouth daddy didn’t just walk into the cannabis game with a “meh” attitude. Oh no. He went full Lavar. He said he was going to create a “billion-dollar” empire. He said he was going to disrupt the industry. He said the weed would be so good, it would make you “run through a brick wall, then apologize to the brick wall for being so weak.” I’m paraphrasing, but the spirit is accurate.
He launched the brand with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the testicles. There was a press conference where he wore a gold chain that spelled out “BALLS.” There were Instagram videos of him smoking a blunt while doing one-handed push-ups and yelling about how his cannabis was “better than Snoop Dogg’s.” He even claimed he was going to give free samples to the Lakers’ front office, “just to calm them down after they fired my son.” (Spoiler: The Lakers didn’t fire Lonzo. They traded him. For Anthony Davis. A literal generational talent. But go off, king.)
But the real kicker? The part that makes this an AITA post waiting to happen?
The product was apparently absolute dogshit.
Multiple sources—and by sources, I mean the one guy on Reddit who claims to have bought a pre-roll—say the “Ball Family Blend” tasted like burnt hair and regret. The packaging was reportedly a garish neon green with a silhouette of Lavar doing his patented “I’m better than you” pose. The price point? $80 for an eighth. In California. Where you can get top-shelf Fire OG for $30 from a guy who drives a Prius.
But Lavar, being Lavar, didn't care about quality. He cared about *branding*. He cared about *legacy*. He cared about *proving the haters wrong*. And like every other time he’s tried to prove the haters wrong, he crashed and burned in a spectacular, public way that even Michael Bay couldn’t script.
The article I read says the company defaulted on a $2.3 million loan from a private equity firm that specializes in “alternative assets.” (Translation: a bunch of finance bros who thought investing in Lavar Ball would be funny for a quarter, then realized they needed actual ROI.) The assets were seized. The grow operation in Compton? Shut down. The distribution deal with a chain of dispensaries in the Inland Empire? Voided.
And the best part? Lavar blamed it on “the system.” Of course he did. He gave an interview where he said, “They don’t want a Black man to win. They don’t want a Black man to succeed. They can’t handle the truth.” Which is ironic, because the truth is that the “system” of capitalism doesn’t care about your skin color—it cares about whether you can sell a product that doesn’t taste like a burnt sneaker.
Let’s be real for a second. Lavar Ball is the ultimate cautionary tale for the American Dream gone wrong. He is the physical embodiment of the phrase “fake it ‘til you make it,” except he never made it. He just kept faking it, and everyone around him got tired of the charade. His sons? Lonzo is trying to rehab his image and his knees in Chicago. LiAngelo is… somewhere. LaMelo is actually a baller, but I guarantee you he doesn’t ask his dad for business advice. He probably has a separate phone line just to ignore the “I told you so” texts.
And now, Lavar is left holding a bag of unsmokable, overpriced, neon-green weed that nobody wants. It’s almost poetic. It’s like watching a train derailment in slow motion, but the train is also screaming “BIG BALLER BRAND” as it explodes.
The cannabis industry is notoriously difficult. It’s full of regulations, taxes, and competition from established brands like Cookies and Stiiizy. You cannot just show up with a loud mouth and a bad attitude and expect to win. You need a product that works. You need a supply chain that doesn’t collapse. You need to not be a colossal dickhead to everyone you meet. Lavar failed on all three fronts.
But hey, at least he’s consistent. He promised us a billion-dollar empire, and he delivered a billion-dollar… disaster. I guess that’s a kind of success, right? In the same way that the Titanic successfully sank.
Final Thoughts
After following the circus of sports media for decades, it’s clear that LaVar Ball was less a basketball figure than a cultural stress test—a man who weaponized hyperbole to expose the entertainment industry’s desperate hunger for any content that blurs the line between fandom and fiction. His rise and fall taught us a hard truth: the same loudmouth bravado that sells shoes and headlines can also poison the very talent it claims to protect, as his sons ultimately had to succeed in spite of his noise, not because of it. In the end, LaVar wasn’t a visionary; he was a warning shot about how quickly we trade credibility for clicks.