How NBA Star LaMelo Ball Accidentally Sparked the TikTok ‘6-7’ Meme

If you have been on sports TikTok lately, chances are you have heard it. A kid hits a three, yells “6-7” and the whole bench shouts it back like a secret paean. And if you’re sitting there thinking, I have no idea what these kids are talking about, you have officially aged out of the joke.

Here is the short version: 6-7 traces its roots to a reference to Charlotte Hornets star LaMelo Ball.

He is listed at 6’7″, and the phrase points to his height as part of his swagger. Fans latched onto it and began using it as shorthand for hype moments. For those in the know, it’s the ultimate accolade for an act of athletic audacity or, more often, a mundane moment.

It is a sign of respect, a nod to “getting the joke.” 

Typically, the highlight reels that 6-7 embodies are poorly cobbled together, grainy, low-quality clips that circulate faster than Nike commercials. That’s the territory 6-7 comes from: B-roll TikToks and chopped-up highlights. The power of 6-7 lies not in its polish but velocity, a phrase that exists only in how fast it can be repeated and how far it can travel online. 

What makes 6-7 stick is its simplicity. Two numbers. You don’t even need to know why it’s funny. It just is. Like most hoops-related media, 6-7 highlight reels are often copies of copies, stripped of “quality.” Their degradation allows them to circulate outside mainstream media gatekeeping. So any kid, anywhere, from Queens to Arlington, Texas, can make the meme a tool of resistance.

In this way, 6-7 is punk. 

Ball’s aura has exceeded his actualization. He has yet to drag the Hornets to the playoffs as the team’s leader and best player—a failure in the weak Eastern Conference. That’s because Ball’s game is built for social media algorithms, not record books. He’s flashy and adept at stat-padding, making him the perfect embodiment of a walking meme.

Like most works of cultural meaninglessness, this began with America’s youth. Clips of LaMelo throwing behind-the-back assists were hashtagged and captioned with “6-7.” The phrase itself originates with Skrilla’s drill rap track “Doot Doot,” where the recurring lyric “6-7” is used. Many interpret it as a nod to Chicago’s 67th Street, a reference to the performer’s background.

Shortly after the song’s release in December 2024, the lyric was repurposed on TikTok, with the earliest version discussing Ball’s height. The commentator states, “He literally moves like somebody that’s 6’1″, 6’2″, except he’s 6’7” over tape of the Hornets star.

The beat in Skrilla’s track drops right as 6-7 is uttered, creating a perfect sync moment for TikTok edits of Ball’s highlights. From there, the algorithm did the rest: 6-7, in part, became shorthand for LaMelo himself, a symbol of a player whose impact lives more vividly on screens than in the standings.

The NBA has always been fertile ground for memes: Michael Jordan’s crying face, Jaylin Williams’ aura farming, Nick Young’s confused grin. 6-7 is elastic in nature, allowing it to transcend LaMelo.

For example: Ben Simmons finally drives to the basket and, instead of passing, actually finishes with a dunk. That’s 6-7. Or Zion Williamson, having promised to focus on his health, posts a picture of himself eating a salad. That’s 6-7. When Paul George, the man who lives on a podcast, decides not to record one this week. That’s 6-7.

It’s a sardonic, almost backhanded compliment. It suggests that a player has, against all expectations, done something normal, and it should be celebrated.

The phrase has become a universal response to anything that feels bigger than it should. In true Americana fashion, logic matters less than aura. 

During the Little League World Series, a coach tried to drop a 6-7 reference, and a kid snarked back, “Oh my gosh, be quiet.” 

This is the pattern: Memes are built for the young, and when older generations attempt to use them, the result is inevitably cringe-tier. Meme culture is inherently youth-coded. When adults chime in, it’s usually too late and rings hollow. 

Memes like this do not just appear out of nowhere. They come from deeply rooted cultural traditions. 6-7 is no exception.

Legacy Russell writes in her book Black Meme that Black culture and Black performance have long been circulated online in ways that strip them from their origins. 6-7 began as a simple flex from a Black artist, likely in reference to his neighborhood. Fans turned it into a chant and now the internet’s recycled it as all-purpose. Russell calls this the process of turning Black expression into a “meme-able gesture.” This is nothing new.

6-7 is not about the words. It’s about the sound, the rhythm of the phrase.

This makes it more than just silly noise. It’s part of a longer story about how Black performance travels through digital culture to how fans adopt it, and then push it into the broader meme economy.

Sports memes thrive on inside jokes that feel exclusive until they suddenly belong to everyone. For now, it works because it means nothing.

But there is more going on beneath the silliness. Linguistically, 6-7 is stripped down to its barest form: two numbers. But semiotically, one could call this a perfect example of myth-making. Which is how any great meme gains traction.

Everyday signs can take on cultural weight when detached from their original context. 6-7 began as a lyric and moved to a measurement of Ball’s height. Now it floats free. Like LaMelo’s mid-range push shot, it’s become a “floating signifier” in the truest sense: a symbol that can mean different things to different people.

This helps explain why the phrase hits so differently from other sports slang. Honestly, it’s not even a real description. It can be slapped onto anything worth celebrating. Fans, trolls, and inevitably Boomers can and will pour their own significance into it.

It has even spawned its own spinoff, the “6-7 Kid.” In a YouTube video about an AAU basketball team posted in March, a boy in the crowd looks at the camera and says, “Ay 6-7” while making up-and-down hand gesture. That clip then went viral on TikTok, spawning its own online lore.

But like all myths, once it circulates widely enough, it risks losing its edge. The moment your aunt types 6-7! under your graduation photo, the spell is broken. French philosopher Roland Barthes would argue that once a sign becomes too transparent, once everyone gets it, it is already dead as myth.

Only a handful of sports memes have transcended their initial burst. “Dame Time” and Steph Curry’s “Night Night” survived because they locked onto specific players and indelible gestures. If LaMelo starts impacting winning, specifically in the playoffs, 6-7 may linger.

Sports cycles thrive on memes like 6-7. Not everyone is going to break down LaMelo’s pick-and-roll reads, but everyone can scream 6-7 after he whips a pass across the court. 

My bet is it has some staying power. It’s too absurd not to. So enjoy it. Say it when your team covers the spread. Say it when your DoorDash driver gives you extra fries. 

“6-7 forever.” Or at least until the next meme arrives.