UCLA players learned no lesson while locked up abroad

So his critics see racism in President Trump’s tweeted berating of LaVar Ball, the spotlight-seeking father of LiAngelo Ball, one of three UCLA basketball players who’ll never know what a hellish experience might have awaited them following their arrests for shoplifting in Shanghai.

Thanks to Trump’s personal appeal to Chinese President Xi Jinping, this trio of pilferers, who languished in jail, were spared what Chinese authorities regard as appropriate punishment.

Unlike American courtrooms where kid gloves, shrinks and coddling thwart justice every day, especially if Dad has the dough to retain a slick lawyer, courts in some foreign countries have notoriously little tolerance for punk behavior.

Remember Michael Fay, the 19-year-old American who was caned — “My skin ripped open, there was blood; it was very hard to sit!” — after being arrested for spray painting cars in Singapore?

Trump’s antagonists poohpoohed the worth of his involvement, theorizing the Chinese government would have been unperturbed by the filching of sunglasses from a Louis Vuitton store.

Really? Would you like to send your kid to Hangzhou to test that theory?

To their initial credit the UCLA players acknowledged their wrongdoing and expressed gratitude for their impending freedom.

Then the circus began; all Trump and LaVar needed were ooogah horns and seltzer bottles as they figuratively stepped into the center ring.

The president felt miffed his role had been minimized, while Ball pretty much concluded the former’s role wasn’t necessary at all.

For Trump it is all so unseemly, though he’s always had New York brashness in his DNA. He’s the Big Kahuna from the Big Apple, which Americans knew when they elected him. It may be why they elected him.

For Ball? It just doesn’t get any better than this for a nobody who shamelessly revels in the accomplishments of his gifted sons, riding their coattails to a level of visibility far beyond his own grasp.

In today’s America, if you play your cards right, being a nobody whose sons are somebodies is all it takes to become a celebrity.

Indeed, fame is pretty cheaply attained these days.

Imagine, having the president take note of you! It’s the dream of every Walter Mitty.

As for hints of racism in Trump’s hissy fit with LaVar, please, that’s no bulletin. If this president ordered Szechuan, tamales or pizza, some fool would find reason to be offended.

But here’s an old line both sides really might do well to ponder:

“You’d be surprised how much can be accomplished if nobody cares who gets the credit.”