It was 2017. LaVar Ball was everywhere. If you turned on ESPN, he was there claiming he could beat Michael Jordan one-on-one. If you scrolled through Instagram, you saw his sons. But the biggest shockwave didn't come from a quote; it came from a sneaker. When the LaMelo Ball BBB shoes—officially known as the Melo Ball 1 (MB1)—dropped, it changed the math for high school athletes forever.
He was 16.
No high schooler had ever had a signature shoe. Not LeBron. Not Kobe. Not even MJ himself. LaMelo was a junior at Chino Hills High School, cherry-picking half-court shots and racking up millions of followers. Then Big Baller Brand decided to slap a $395 price tag on a low-top sneaker for a kid who couldn't even legally drive a car alone in some states. It was gutsy. Some called it genius; others called it a disaster waiting to happen.
Looking back, those shoes represent a weird, fever-dream era of basketball culture. Before the Puma deals and the NBA All-Star appearances, there was just a skinny kid with blonde streaks in his hair trying to sell "indie" sneakers out of a warehouse in Chino.
The Chaos of the MB1 Launch
The LaMelo Ball BBB shoes weren't just about the leather or the foam. They were a middle finger to the NCAA. Back then, the rules around "Name, Image, and Likeness" (NIL) were incredibly strict. By releasing a signature shoe while still in high school, LaMelo was essentially nuking his eligibility to play college ball.
LaVar didn't care.
The MB1 was priced at $395. For a non-performance-tested shoe from a startup brand, that was an insane ask. Fans were used to paying $160 for Jordans or $120 for Kyries. BBB was asking for double that for a shoe that hadn't even been reviewed by experts yet. The design itself was... interesting. It featured a low-cut silhouette, a fly-knit upper, and a "camo" aesthetic on the sole that looked remarkably similar to some Brandblack models.
That similarity wasn't an accident.
Actually, Big Baller Brand partnered with Rare Design Group, led by David Raysse, the founder of Brandblack. This is why the MB1 actually looked like a real basketball shoe compared to Lonzo Ball’s original ZO2, which looked like a sketch from a generic catalog. The MB1 used Brandblack’s Jetlon foam. It was actually a decent performer on court, surprisingly enough. But the price and the controversy overshadowed the tech.
Why the Shoes Disappeared
You can't find these at Foot Locker. You never could.
The downfall of the LaMelo Ball BBB shoes is tied to the messy collapse of the Big Baller Brand infrastructure. If you ordered a pair in 2017, you were lucky if they showed up by 2018. Shipping delays became legendary. Customers were venting on Reddit and Twitter about waiting six months for sneakers that cost nearly $400.
Then the Alan Foster situation happened.
For those who missed the drama, Alan Foster was a co-founder of BBB and a close friend of the Ball family. In 2019, Lonzo Ball severed ties with Foster after alleging that $1.5 million had gone missing from his personal and business accounts. Lonzo literally covered up his BBB tattoo with a pair of dice. When the face of the brand leaves, the younger brother's shoe line is going to suffer.
LaMelo eventually moved on to play professionally in Lithuania and then Australia. By the time he was prepping for the NBA Draft, the BBB hype had cooled significantly. He needed a partner that could actually manufacture shoes at scale.
The Pivot to Puma and the Death of the MB1
When LaMelo signed with Puma in 2020, it was the final nail in the coffin for the original LaMelo Ball BBB shoes. Puma reportedly gave him a deal worth up to $100 million.
Think about that.
He went from a family-run business that couldn't ship boxes on time to a global powerhouse with a private jet. The Puma MB.01 was a massive hit, often selling out in minutes. It proved that the "Melo" brand was real, even if the "BBB" brand was flawed. People actually wanted his shoes; they just wanted them to be high-quality and, you know, actually exist in a warehouse.
The original MB1 is now a collector's item. If you have a deadstock pair in the "Camo" or "Cotton Candy" colorway, they fetch a decent price on the secondary market. Not because they're the best basketball shoes ever made, but because they represent a specific moment in time when the Ball family tried to hijack the entire sneaker industry.
Honestly, the MB1 was a prototype for the modern era. Today, high school kids sign NIL deals and have their own logos before they graduate. LaMelo was just the guinea pig.
What the "Melo Ball 1" Taught the Industry
The sneaker world learned a few hard lessons from the Big Baller Brand experiment.
- Distribution is everything. You can have the most famous teenager in the world, but if you can't ship the product, the brand dies.
- Price sensitivity matters even for "clout" items. $395 was a barrier that even die-hard fans struggled to justify.
- Performance testing is non-negotiable. NBA players exert forces on shoes that would tear a "lifestyle" sneaker apart.
Interestingly, BBB tried to make a "comeback" with various versions of the shoe later on, but the magic was gone. Once LaMelo started wearing the Puma "Not From Here" line, the BBB era became a footnote.
If you are looking to buy LaMelo Ball BBB shoes today, be extremely careful. Counterfeits exist, but more importantly, the materials on the original pairs haven't always aged well. The glues used by the smaller factories BBB employed were sometimes prone to separation. If you're buying them to actually play basketball in? Don't. They are strictly a display piece at this point.
Actionable Steps for Collectors
If you're hunting for a piece of this history, here is how you handle it:
- Check the Insoles: Authentic MB1s have specific Big Baller Brand branding that is often misprinted on fakes.
- Verify the Box: The original boxes were surprisingly sturdy and featured a specific magnetic closure for the "luxury" feel they were going for.
- Mind the Midsole: Look for the Brandblack-inspired Jetlon texture. If it looks like cheap, smooth plastic, it's a knockoff.
- Search Secondary Markets: Sites like eBay or GOAT are your best bet, but expect to pay a premium for "Deadstock" (unworn) condition.
The legacy of the LaMelo Ball BBB shoes isn't about the sales figures. It’s about the fact that a kid from Chino Hills convinced the world to talk about a $400 sneaker for an entire summer. It was the first ripple in a wave that eventually turned into the NIL era we see today.
Keep your eyes on the secondary market trends. As LaMelo's NBA career progresses, these "rookie era" artifacts usually gain value, mostly as a "what were we thinking?" curiosity of basketball history.
