Keenan Thompson brought back Lavar Ball on SNL, his best new character
By Josh Hill
Keenan Thompson brought back his Lavar Ball impression, and it’s the best thing on SNL.
If there’s a more controversial media figure in the country than Donald Trump, it’s Lavar Ball. Where Trump is seen as representing the worst in humans, Ball is seen as taking all of the reality television and hardo sports dad cliches over the top.
Ball made waves when he released his son Lonzo’s first signature shoe at a retail price of $500. Unsurprisingly, the shoes turned out to be utter garbage and that’s just the tip of the iceberg of hot takes folks have had about him. He pulled his two younger sons out of college and shipped them off to a Lithuanian village to play professional (?) European basketball, and is starting to cause drama in the Los Angeles Lakers locker room for his eldest.
There has been a lot said about Lavar Ball and the attention that is being paid to him. NBA coaches called out ESPN and other media outlets for giving Ball coverage they think he doesn’t deserve and have talked about banning journalists who give him the time of day.
SNL doesn’t have to worry about living by those rules, and out of that Keenan Thompson has crafted one of his best character impressions of his entire tenure. We’ve only seen him pop up as Lavar a handful of times, and they’ve all been absolute gems.
Everything is perfect, from the spot-on delivery that Thompson has to the outlandish things he says that are satire but could totally be something Ball said. Watching him sink into the role with the glee he has is a joy to behold.
“(Beets) so baller they make your dookie redder than Santa Claus.” @officialkenan as Lavar Ball is a national treasure. #SNL
— Cory McCartney (@coryjmccartney) January 14, 2018
https://twitter.com/CKarlenKC/status/952412089615814656
Tonight's SNL should just have been 90 minutes of Keenan Thompson as LaVar Ball.
— heymynameiswill.bsky.social (@HeyMyNameIsWill) January 14, 2018
The only redeeming quality about LaVar Ball is Keenan Thompson. #SNL
— Adam (@RuralWordsmith) January 14, 2018
This is what SNL is here for, to make the awful things in life not feel that bad. There’s no coincidence that the resurgence of SNL last season was directly connected to how hard in the paint it went on Donald Trump. Alec Baldwin won an Emmy for his role as Trump. They don’t even hand those out to actual cast members, let alone someone who is a guest star on the series.
Ball is hardly as bad as Trump; it’s not even remotely fair to make that comparison. The consensus on Ball might be that he’s a lot to handle but Thompson is the best thing about having to deal with him.