Elena Delle Donne, Nike athlete, dunks on Lavar Ball

In addition to the two WNBA games on the Friday slate, many basketball fans may have their eyes on the start of Las Vegas Summer League. Perhaps most notably, Lonzo Ball made his debut for the Los Angeles Lakers. The Washington Mystics were not in action and their star forward Elena Delle Donne took to Twitter, saying:

Words can be difficult, especially on Twitter. Even if Delle Donne did intend to make a pointed dig at $500 basketball shoes made available only by pre-order for a 19-year-old prior to his first professional appearance, it ranked many steps below mild.

The fun continued:

The mentions to Delle Donne’s initial tweet took a quick turn. Among the wildly creative responses to a Nike athlete tweeting something about Nike was a phrase Lonzo’s father, LaVar, has embraced after using it on a television appearance with a particular network that has gotten quite cozy with him. If you aren’t aware of said phrase, well, take a guess:

Delle Donne was a good sport with the followers choosing to make a sport of being angry:

Delle Donne then wrapped things up with a plug for the USA Softball team, also playing Friday:

It’s only fitting to see an angry backlash pro-Ball family on the same day of a Ramona Shelburne report quoting Magic Johnson, who told her that LaVar openly admitted that all his antics were purely shtick:

"“He just said it’s marketing,” Johnson says. “That’s what he had to do to market not only his son but the brand.”"

By this account, LaVar understands he’s a hype man.

Delle Donne understands how to have some fun on Twitter.

Where does that leave us? I don’t know about you, but that middle ground seems like a not-so-fun place. Let’s get back to having fun.