Lonzo Ball has already told stories about his dad in a Foot Locker commercial, but he’s also written a letter to LaVar Ball in honor of Father’s Day. The UCLA standout penned a letter to LaVar in The Players’ Tribune that was published on Friday.
The piece was called “To the Loudest Guy in the Gym” and features some anecdotes about how LaVar helped Lonzo become the player and the man he is today. One of Ball’s main points in the piece is that those who criticize his father don’t know the real LaVar Ball.
They weren’t there when you cleared out our living room so that my brothers and I would have room to play games and just be kids.
They’ve never woken up to the smell of one of your signature breakfasts, which you made for us every single day when we were growing up.
And they weren’t there when you were making sure that I always took care of business in the classroom and graduated from high school with a 4.0 GPA.
Both Balls have stressed that people don’t understand their relationship as father and son. That’s why some of the things Ball says about parenting or the way he talks about his kids comes off as jarring. Lonzo, for example said he’s learned to “internalize” the way he is critical of his game.
You’ve never told me, “Great game,” and just left it at that. Win or lose, you’ve always been able to find something that I could improve. Some people are thrown off by your tone, but I’ve always known to internalize what you say rather than how you say it. Because when you unpack everything, there’s always truth in what you tell me.
For Lonzo, these are not negatives, but rather important learning experiences that have helped him reach top five lottery pick status. And if it works for Lonzo, the logic is that there’s no problem to be had there. It’s nice to see that when Lonzo is given room to talk he says nice things about his father.
It’s been stressed by others and becoming more clear as we get closer to draft day—LaVar and Lonzo are very different people. That’s probably a good thing for whoever ends up drafting Lonzo, but the influence of the “loudest guy in the gym” has made Lonzo the different person he is today.
