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Chicago Bulls guard Lonzo Ball, who has spent much of his NBA career plagued by injuries, has made a stunning revelation about his father LaVar Ball’s sneaker and apparel company Big Baller Brand. According to Lonzo, he “wasn’t really getting hurt” until he started wearing his father’s sneakers.
Lonzo Ball, who is still just 27 years old, has made six appearances for the Chicago Bulls this year after sitting out the entirety of the last two seasons. In the 2021-22 season, Ball’s most recent season prior to this one, he appeared in just 35 games.
Ball was selected by the Los Angeles Lakers with the #2 overall pick out of UCLA in the 2017 NBA Draft. He spent three seasons in Los Angeles before being shipped to the Los Angeles Pelicans as part of the Anthony Davis trade.
During a recent lengthy interview with ESPN, which was framed as being an inside look at his “1,000-day return to the NBA,” Ball was not shy about putting Big Baller Brand in the crosshairs as he tied a direct thread between the sneakers and his injuries, even going to far as calling the BBB sneakers “kickball shoes.”
“I was an Adidas kid since high school, so I was thinking that was going to be the route,” Ball said. “But what was told to me, I guess, wasn’t what really happened. I was told that nobody wanted to partner with me, so my dad was like, ‘Just rock the brand.’ And I was like, ‘All right,'” Ball told ESPN in a profile interview. “They were like kickball shoes.”
“Ball said he wasn’t happy with those shoes either and believes they could have contributed to the first meniscus injury he suffered as a rookie in January 2018. ‘I think it’s a possibility for sure, to be honest with you… I wasn’t really getting hurt like that until I started wearing them.'”
Lonzo’s revelation is a stunning conclusion to his father’s Big Baller Brand grift, which infamously sold the sneakers for $495 but struggled to actually deliver them to customers. These days, when you head to the Big Baller Brand website, neither Lonzo nor his brother Lamelo appear on the homepage’s feature image, but rather, LaVar Ball and two other men his age.
In recent years, LaVar has receded into the background, perhaps finally realizing he was doing more harm than good in his sons’ lives.