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If you’ve ever played organized basketball, then you’re well aware of the Basketball Dad— the guy who yells at refs to call a travel during a game between second graders and who is proud to have been banned from multiple gyms in a high school conference. If you’re looking for a prototypical example of this phenomenon, you don’t need to look any farther than LaVar Ball.
One of the defining qualities of the Basketball Dad is their belief that they could do a better job coaching their son than literally anyone else, which explains why Ball has continually criticized Los Angeles Lakers coach Luke Walton. Last week, the notorious helicopter parent LaVar Balled for the 76,389th time this year after he questioned the leadership of Los Angeles Lakers coach Luke Walton and drew the ire of seemingly every coach in the NBA in the process.
Say what you will about the elder Ball, but you kind of have to feel bad for Lonzo, who probably asks his dad to let him out of the car a couple of blocks away from the Staples Center before practice so he doesn’t get embarrassed in front of his teammates.
The always outspoken Gregg Popovich recently spoke with ESPN to share his thoughts on the matter, and he did not hold back when asked about how he felt:
“Whenever anyone says anything about another individual or about the quality of another individual, or what they’re doing, I think the first thing to look at is the substance and gravitas of the source that speaks. Just stopping at that point would tell you that you don’t need to listen or go any further. It’s just another fan in the peanut gallery with an opinion, which is meaningless. Luke [Walton] has been schooled in this game from the time he was a little kid. And he doesn’t even know what he knows probably, just by osmosis, whether it was living at home, [or] in school as a player. He’s had tremendous experience.
As a player, he wasn’t the best athlete in the world. But those are the guys that sometimes understand the game better because it comes a little tougher to them. They understand what wins and loses, what they have to do to get an advantage and really understand the game, which he does. He inherently understands the game, and not everybody does. And then the icing on the cake, he gets to spend a few years up with Steve [Kerr] at Golden State with a great organization, and a great group. So, he’s way more than ready to handle this situation.
But it’s a situation that’s gonna take time. It’s a process. And it certainly doesn’t need any outside chatter from people who don’t have a clue and haven’t gotten over themselves.”
I can’t wait to be able to recycle this headline whenever Popovich is asked for his thoughts on literally anything Ball says in the future.