LiAngelo Ball and the two other UCLA teammates charged with shoplifting in China are off the hook, from the law at least. The three Bruins arrived from their flight from China to Los Angeles on Tuesday, days after Donald Trump asked Chinese president Xi Jinping for assistance in resolving the matter. Ball and his teammates Cody Riley and Jalen Hill were arrested on charges of trying to shoplift sunglasses in China. They were in China to play Georgia Tech, and after being charged they were kept in their hotel and weren't allowed to return stateside with the rest of the team.

Trump, however, wants his role in that extradition to be known. He tweeted on Wednesday morning, asking if the players would "say thank you to President Trump."

Full article here.

So Donnie Trump went ahead and talked to President Xi Jinping in China, and pushed him to release the three players who were facing jail time for shoplifting. He’s now made it clear that he wants the players to thank him for getting them out. When I blogged this story last week, I made some false insinuations. I insinuated that LaVar Ball turning China into his newest circus would be the worst-case scenario, but I was wrong. This. This is scary. We’re so fucking close to a Donald Trump and Lavar Ball interaction. That interaction happening, my friends, is the worst-case scenario.

Look these players, for the sake of all of us, need to say thank you. First of all, they’re not getting their fingernails pulled out in Chinese prison for the next ten years, so that’s good news for them. But also, don’t make this a thing. Please, just say thank you to President Trump and let’s move on. This is such a ridiculous thing to be worried about. But at the same time, in the world we live in, it’s legitimate!

LaVar Ball and Donald Trump are like two branches of the same tree. They’ve thrived off of negative attention and mass media appeal, and they’ve established themselves as these big mouths that will churn out easy headlines. Fortunately, nay miraculously, the two of them have operated in completely different circles up until this point. It’s truly a miracle that neither of them has interacted with the other, but I guess it was only a matter of time. I mean, the scariest thing of all is that LaVar Ball owes Trump, in which case they’d be allies. Will Trump become the newest Big Baller? Is Trump already a Big Baller? I guess if this is how the world ends, at least it will be good for #content. We're all going to die.

P.S. It looks the players have said their thank you's. Now we wait.