After each Prienu Vytautas loss—and there have been plenty of those since LiAngelo and LaMelo Ball arrived in Lithuania—LaVar Ball has offered the same critique: if only head coach Virginijus Seskus played his boys together, and had the team play fast and free like his old Big Ballers AAU squads, the club would turn things around. He touted his coaching wins in Big Baller Brand-sponsored exhibitions as proof that his decidedly non-European brand of basketball works.

Seskus, though, has been a skeptic, and certainly sounded like he would remain so after Saturday’s 104-71 loss to Lietuvos Rytas in Lithuanian (LKL) League play. As the coach explained after the game, he bumped up Melo’s minutes, and let the 16-year-old shoot pretty much as he pleased, to prove that the Big Baller Way won’t fly in Europe.

“Today, I wanted to let him play and show that it’s hard to play against a more powerful opponent,” Seskus said, according to a translation. “They play in those tournaments of theirs, score 40 each…Maybe it’s late now, but we need to show the reality of Lithuanian basketball, that anyone cannot just come over and play.

“So I let him play more today for them to see that playing this style of basketball that they want to play, you will lose against every single LKL team. We looked at this game as some kind experiment to play that style of play.”

The result? LaMelo shot 2-of-15 from the field (1-of-9 from three) and logged a plus-minus of minus-25 in his 23 minutes of court time.

Seskus added that there will be “no experiments” with style of play during the team’s next game against Kedainiai Nevezis on April 12. The good news for the Ball family is, that approach figures to include plenty of opportunities for LiAngelo, who’s playing to strengthen his stock ahead of the 2018 NBA draft.

“We will play our game,” he said. “We will try to include Gelo, because I remember last time we played against them, he scored 20 in the first half.”

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Still, if LaVar returns to Lithuania from the Junior Basketball Association tryouts in time to see his youngest son tethered to the bench, don’t be surprised if the Big Baller has more stern words for his sons’ embattled coach.