President Donald Trump lashed out at LaVar Ball Sunday, tweeting "I should have left them in jail!" in reference to the three UCLA players who had been detained in China on shoplifting charges.

Ball's son, LiAngelo Ball, and fellow UCLA freshmen Jalen Hill and Cody Riley were detained by Chinese authorities on suspicion of shoplifting last week during UCLA's trip to the country to play its season opener against Georgia Tech. As the team returned to the U.S., the three freshmen remained in China, with some reports speculating they could be stuck there for months as their case was resolved.

President Trump, on a trip through Asia at the time of the players' arrests, said he asked Chinese president Xi Jinping for his assistance in the case during a visit to Beijing. The players were released and returned to the U.S. on Tuesday.

But when asked about the president's assistance in the case, the elder Ball told ESPN, "Who? What was he over there for? Don't tell me nothing. Everybody wants to make it seem like he helped me out."

Sunday, President Trump fired back, tweeting, "Now that the three basketball players are out of China and saved from years in jail, LaVar Ball, the father of LiAngelo, is unaccepting of what I did for his son and that shoplifting is no big deal. I should have left them in jail!

It's worth noting that all three players publicly thanked either the president or the U.S. government in securing their release.

"To President Trump and the entire United States government, thank you for taking the time to intervene on our behalf," Riley said when the players met with the media Tuesday.

Trump noted in a tweet last week that the players "were headed for 10 years in jail!"

Yet the elder Ball, who accompanied UCLA on the trip, downplayed the seriousness of the shoplifting charges.

"As long as my boy's back here, I'm fine," Ball told ESPN. "I'm happy with how things were handled. A lot of people like to say a lot of things that they thought happened over there. Like I told him, 'They try to make a big deal out of nothing sometimes.'

"I'm from L.A. I've seen a lot worse things happen than a guy taking some glasses. My son has built up enough character that one bad decision doesn't define him. Now if you can go back and say when he was 12 years old he was shoplifting and stealing cars and going wild, then that's a different thing."