ESPN’s LaVar Ball story that infuriated some of ESPN’s own and caused a firestorm in the NBA coaching ranks had an unexpected critic: its source.

Ball, a cartoon overbearing father brought to life, claimed he has shut off ESPN reporter Jeff Goodman following the publication of Ball’s attack on Lakers coach Luke Walton, saying the veteran reporter, whom ESPN sent to Lithuania to follow LaVar’s sons’ professional debut, is “sheisty.” He also said he will not speak with star ESPN reporter Ramona Shelburne.

“I sent Jeff Goodman home early,” Ball said on ESPN Radio in Los Angeles on Monday, in audio on The Big Lead. “I said you gotta go. … Otherwise he would have still been out here. But how are you going to be out here if I won’t interview with you no more? You got to come home. Bye bye.”

ESPN disputes that charge, saying Goodman’s trip lasted eight days, as planned. Yet Goodman’s interview style — in which he appears to have asked questions in a manner to extract quotes from his interview subject — set the unfiltered Ball off.

“He ain’t my guy no more,” said Ball, the father of Lakers rookie Lonzo Ball. “I’ll never ever, EVER do an interview with that guy again. He’s sheisty, and I see that. He wanted to go that route. Like I told him, ‘You can do what you want, say what you want, you just gotta suffer the consequences whether they be good or bad.’

“He did the little story he wanted to write, tried to finagle things,” Ball continued. “Guess what? He’s out of the picture now. He can’t come close to my family.”

The story in question contained explosive Ball quotes in which he said Walton had lost the team, suggesting the team should fire him. The Jan. 7 piece, filed from Birstonas, Lithuania, led to widespread criticism of ESPN for deeming the Balls worthy of international coverage and from numerous head coaches who defended Walton. Ball, who seemingly sees any coverage as good for his Big Baller Brand, signed off on the publication, but did not feel Goodman followed his preferred line of questioning.

“He’s sheisty,” Ball said. “… He knows the kind of tricks he was trying to play, like when we’re interviewing about the boys [LaMelo and LiAngelo] and all of a sudden he slips in, ‘How we doing about … how’s Lonzo doing?’ OK, I thought we were talking about the boys, but you know me, I’ll answer anything.

“He was like, ‘Can I put that on the record?’ And I was like, ‘You know I don’t bite my tongue. You do what you want with it.'”

Ball knows that coverage of him is suddenly an internet gold mine.

“I get that’s a story he was trying to get,” Ball said. “Now, if he thinks that’s worth a bunch of clicks … hey, that’s fine. You also gotta understand that it affects me in a bad way.

“[But] either I deal with you or I don’t. And now I don’t deal with him. Just like Ramona Shelburne, she off my list, too.”

After ESPN ran with the story, some NBA teams reportedly asked their media relations staff to bar reporters who quote Ball.

“Great day,” Goodman wrote on Twitter.