Remember these JBA guys for the most part are kids that either didn't have the grades, the attitude or the support they needed to play at the NCAA level. There's even some that had legal issues. Lavar is approaching this with a Last Chance U/Tough Love type philosophy and probably expressed the need to have coaches who could handle players that were a little "rough around the edges". That doesn't excuse this coaches behavior, but I think he probably understood that philosophy and just took it too far.
That kinda makes it worse. If you look at society, with nursing homes, rehabilitation facilities, minimum wage jobs, group homes, boys homes, girls homes, jail, halfway house type programs, alternative schools for fukkups,teen moms, dropouts, there’s a very high rate of abuse in various ways because the victims aren’t seen to have other options. The player was free to go, and could have swung on dude but my guess is that he feels this is the end of the road for him as a basketball player and had to take it. That’s dangerous