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Lonzo Ball supports Earl Watson as next UCLA basketball coach

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Could Earl Watson be the next UCLA basketball coach?

Former UCLA point guard Lonzo Ball has an opinion on who should be the next coach of the Bruins.

The Los Angeles Lakers point guard has thrown his support behind former UCLA player Earl Watson.

"I'd like to see, maybe, Earl Watson get the job," Ball told reporters.

Watson was fired as coach of the Phoenix Suns shortly into last season.

He was a four-year starter at UCLA before playing 13 seasons in the NBA.

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He is one of several notable candidates to be linked to the Bruins' vacancy since they fired Steve Alford on Monday after five-plus seasons.

"Obviously he went there, he's alumni, so I think he's a good fit," Ball said of Watson. "He knows how to get to the league, how to stay in the league. He coached in the league. I think he's the best for the job."

Watson is a fan of Ball's.

Their relationship dates to when Ball was in the eighth grade.

“I saw Lonzo play one game, it was a West Coast All-Star invitation-only camp,” Watson told azcentral sports at the beginning of last season. “I saw Lonzo run the point guard position and the fast break better than anyone I’ve ever seen at his age. I tried to recruit him to my travel team. It didn’t work. LaVar (Ball’s father) wanted to coach. We don’t have parents coach so it was non-negotiable.”

LaVar Ball has caught a lot of flak for being such a domineering presence in Lonzo’s life, but Watson said he saw their relationship differently.

“I remember after that (All-Star) game, I saw LaVar pull him aside and really scold him, not in a degrading way but in an accountable way. To me that was the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen. Most parents in high school at that time, Lonzo was still Lonzo, they would embrace him and cheer up him. He (LaVar) was teaching him the game and getting on him for not doing things a certain way. There was a certain standard he demanded for his son. I thought right there the kid was going to be special.”

Watson has not publicly indicated that he has interest in the UCLA job, but he said in March 2017 that the school is an "amazing place" and had a lasting effect on him and his career.

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"There's no doubt that I love my school," Watson said, according to ESPN. "It took me out of a poverty situation and gave me hope. ... I feel like it saved me."

While Ball went out of his way to stump for Watson on Wednesday, another prominent point guard who played for the Bruins, Russell Westbrook, wasn't nearly as committal. A reporter asked Westbrook if he had a preference for the hire given that he has donated to the university.

"It ain’t up to me, champ," Westbrook told reporters. "It ain’t up to me, man. I ain’t that big of a damn donor."

USA TODAY Sports' Tom Schad contributed to this story.

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