LiAngelo Ball is speaking out at length for the first time since his shoplifting arrest in China — and he is throwing his now-former UCLA teammates under the bus, claiming he was just following their lead during an incident last month.

Ball confirmed on NBC’s “Today” show that he’s decided to leave UCLA after his indefinite suspension following the shoplifting arrest in China last month with fellow freshman teammates Jalen Hill and Cody Riley. The detained players were allowed to return to the United States after President Donald Trump said he spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping and secured their release. Ball appeared on the show early Tuesday with his outspoken father, LaVar, and admitted to shoplifting, but only after others did first, he said.

“We all went out one night, went to the malls, went to the Louis Vuitton store and, uh, people started taking stuff, and then, you know, me just not thinking and being with them, I took something too,” Ball said.

Ball said he and his teammates then left, assuming they’d “just get away” without any repercussions, thousands of miles from their home.

“And we left thinking we’ll just get away — you know how kids think,” Ball continued. “I didn’t realize ‘til I got back to my hotel, I’m like, ‘That was stupid.’ But by then it was too late. And then sure enough, the next morning, the police came and got us.”

Ball spent the next day-and-a-half in jail, he said.

“Oh, it was horrible,” he said of the conditions. “They take your clothes, you wear, like, whatever they have for you, a little jumpsuit or whatever, take your shoestrings and you just sit in a cement cell for however long. It’s just you and all the officers — and they don’t speak English.”

Ball confirmed he wasn’t prepared to sit out several months before getting back on the hardcourt. UCLA is 7-1, about one-quarter of their way through the season, after opening with a victory in Shanghai against Georgia Tech.

“Yeah, that’s the whole season, pretty much,” Ball said. “That’s just a long time of doing nothing. I’d rather be playing.”

TMZ reported Monday that Ball’s father, LaVar, had decided to pull his son, a fringe NBA prospect, out of UCLA and off its basketball team because he considered the suspension unfair, particularly after the charges against him and the other players were dropped.

“China already said, ‘OK, he made a bad mistake, we’re going to drop the charges.’ That’s the punishment they gave him,” said LaVar, who disputes Trump’s role in his son’s return home. “Now we over here — we gotta serve some more punishment? He apologized. What is the long process for? We only went to UCLA — one and done — to play basketball.”

LaVar then promised to take matters into his own hands with LiAngelo, who had been expected to come off the bench for UCLA prior to his suspension. Ball’s eldest son, Lonzo, was selected No. 2 overall by the Los Angeles Lakes earlier this year after leading UCLA to the Sweet 16.

“I’m going to get Gelo in shape, we’re going to work him out, we’re going to do some other things and he’s going to be headed to the NBA,” he said.