The inevitable LaVar Ball vs. Donald Trump war of words is here

Are you familiar with that scene in A Clockwork Orange where Alex is forced to watch horrific images with his eyes pried open as some kind of behavioral therapy?

That’s what watching LaVar vs. Trump unfold feels like.

We all knew the LaVar Ball – Donald Trump war of words was inevitable the moment LiAngelo Ball was arrested in China on suspicion of shoplifting during a UCLA team trip, which is a wild statement to say about the Kris Jenner of the basketball and the leader of the free world. But it’s 2017 and two of the most vocal, volatile and vain public figures were somehow, inexplicably and unjustly, involved in the same news story so here we are.

Let’s recap if you have somehow successfully avoided the details.

LiAngelo, the youngest of the Ball children, was in Hangzhou with the UCLA men’s basketball team for a game against Georgia Tech. While there, he and two of his teammates, Cody Riley and Jalen Hill, stole some sunglasses from a Louis Vuitton store, among other items from other stores. They were caught. The police searched their bags and found the stolen items. Not a lot was up for debate. They went to jail, but were released on bail, which is something that apparently indicated the Chinese authorities were taking a rather chill approach to all of this to begin with.

Trump, who is the president of the United States, became involved, as leaders of countries often do when their citizens are involved in crimes in other countries. (Particularly when said citizens are high profile and/or Big Ballers.) He spoke to Xi Jinping, president of the People’s Republic of China, and the players were then released. (Trump said he saved them from 10 years in jail; Chinese law experts told USA Today Sports it was more like 15 days and a fine.)

Trump, apparently insecure about approval ratings, asked whether the players would thank him. (They did. They also apologized.)

The next day, he encouraged the players to thank Xi Jinping and also encouraged them to HAVE A GREAT LIFE and “be careful, there are many pitfalls on the long and winding road of life,” which seems like something he probably read on a fortune cookie from whatever is the Chinese food equivalent of the Cinco De Mayo taco bowl at Trump Tower.

LaVar, apparently insecure at the insinuation that he did not have the power to get his son out of Chinese jail — which again, LiAngelo likely wouldn’t have served any time anyways — told ESPN, “Don’t tell me nothing. Everybody wants to make it seem like he helped me out.”

Adding:

"As long as my boy’s back here, I’m fine. I’m happy with how things were handled. A lot of people like to say a lot of things that they thought happened over there. Like I told him, ‘They try to make a big deal out of nothing sometimes.’ I’m from L.A. I’ve seen a lot worse things happen than a guy taking some glasses."

Which somehow manages to both be accurate — Trump was making it a bigger deal — and totally cavalier about committing crimes in foreign countries — shoplifting in China is different than shoplifting in L.A.!

Trump, apparently sore about something said by a celebrity the rest of us have long ago learned to ignore, then said he should have left the UCLA players in jail, which is of course extremely presidential.

Lest you think the administration had better things to do, Dan Scavino, White House Director of Social Media, also tweeted, a similar message.

Shockingly, LaVar is not a huge Twitter user, preferring talks shows and the traditional media. For better or worse, it’s extremely clear that the president loves to watch cable almost as much as he loves Twitter so he’ll no doubt pick up LaVar’s response.

Next: The 20 different emotions of Gregg Popovich

In actual U.S.-China relations, Trump back-peddled on his strong anti-China campaign rhetoric, blamed Obama, took shots at “the failing New York Times,” broke press precedent by accepting China’s ban on questions and totally ignored human rights violations.

In actual college basketball news, Ball, Hill and Riley have been indefinitely suspended from the team.