LaVar Ball doesn’t even understand why President Trump would bother responding to him.

The polarizing patriarch of a family he believes is basketball royalty spoke to ABC on Sunday in his first comments since Trump attacked him, expressing bewilderment that Trump would even care what Ball thought about his son being spared from a trial in China over shoplifting.

Ball had been resistant to thank Trump for his role in getting LiAngelo Ball back to the United States, which led to Trump’s furious tweet saying he would have left Americans to face Chinese punishment if he knew he would not be properly thanked. Ball still doesn’t know why Trump thinks he deserves credit.

“Did he go visit them in jail? Did you go visit them in jail?” Ball told “Good Morning America” producer Michael Del Moro. “If you went to visit them in jail then I would say, ‘Thank you.’”

After indulging ever so slightly in a back-and-forth, Ball, who nearly never no-comments, said he wanted to avoid further inflaming a feud with the president. Ball is set to appear on CNN for an interview Monday night, though.

Trump did not go visit the three UCLA basketball players in jail. What he did while on a trip overseas was ask Chinese President Xi Jinping for assistance in the case in which the players were accused of shoplifting, an act to which they admitted guilt upon returning stateside. They had been facing three to 10 years in prison if convicted, and all three players — LaVar’s middle son LiAngelo, Cody Riley and Jalen Hall — thanked Trump for taking a personal interest.

LaVar, however, has not paid his respects.

“Who?” Ball told ESPN on Friday about Trump, who had happily taken credit. “What was he over there for? Don’t tell me nothing. Everybody wants to make it seem like he helped me out.”

Trump would not stand for his role to be downplayed.

“I should have left them in jail!​” he wrote Sunday.

Sparring with the volcanic president is surely good business for Ball, who specializes in verbal jousting, all in the name of Big Baller Brand.