March 27 at 7:43 AMThere are a number of ways to determine if a sneaker company is doing well, the easiest being simply looking down to see if anyone actually is wearing the shoes.

And Lonzo Ball covering up his Big Baller Brand tattoo would seem to be a very bad sign for the sneaker company co-founded by his father.

There are more foundational signs of trouble for the brand than erased tattoos or thrown-away sneakers, however, and they were detailed in a story by ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne and Paula Lavigne, who wrote last week that Lonzo Ball has severed ties with the brand’s other co-founder, Alan Foster, over concerns that he has misappropriated $1.5 million of the player’s money and did not reveal to the Ball family that he has a criminal past.

But in October, Lonzo Ball’s financial adviser sent around an email saying the Lakers guard’s taxes could not be completed because $1.5 million of his money could not be located, and that Foster was the likely culprit.

LaVar Ball did not fully acknowledge the email until last week, according to the ESPN report, even after Lonzo raised the issue with him a number of times.

Lonzo Ball also was unaware that Foster had been imprisoned for financial misdeeds earlier this century, Shelburne and Lavigne report.