Ex-NBA players concerned about LaVar's role in Lonzo Ball's development
CHICAGO — What’s a father’s role for their child when it comes to the sport of basketball? Well, it depends.
Ask LaVar Ball, and he’ll likely tell you it’s to market his NBA-bound son, Lonzo, with outlandish comments and create a sneaker/apparel empire.
Former NBA big man and Players Association president Antonio Davis, now an ESPN analyst, disagrees with that approach. Big time.
“There’s a part of me that’s happy (LaVar) is out there being a Dad and helping his son. The other part of me is just like, ‘shut up.’ Let everything (Lonzo) does on the court speak for everything off the court,” Davis said at the Jr. NBA Youth Basketball Leadership Conference — held for the first time on May 12-13 as an event geared towards impacting the youth basketball community by engaging with coaches and teachers.
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“I got to thinking, man he’s crazy like a fox. He’s getting all this attention for his son. He’s building this platform for his son to now step in and do something. But then once it was built, he did nothing. He was still flapping his mouth. I was like, OK, he’s an idiot. I was waiting for him, once he had everybody’s attention, to say something that meant something or to help his son in some kind of way I didn’t see coming.”
Davis’ daughter, Kaela, played for South Carolina’s national champion team this past season, and was drafted 10th overall in the WNBA draft by the Dallas Wings. His son, Antonio Jr., a former player at Tennessee, transferred to Central Florida. He said one of the biggest lessons he’s learned as a father is when to take a step back.
“My son I had to let go, my daughter I had to let her go,” Davis said. “Because I never wanted anything to mess up that relationship. I always wanted to go home and be dad. I coached my daughter’s high school team for a while in the summer. She started getting negative from me being there. I literally said I don’t want anything to bother her and I quit. So listening to her and what she needed was more important.”
Joining Davis on the panel for the Jr. NBA conference was Sam Perkins, who won a national championship with Michael Jordan at North Carolina and played 18 seasons in the NBA. Perkins complimented Lonzo’s skillset and his father’s marketing expertise but said a brick wall is coming at the NBA level for the Ball family.
On Lonzo, Perkins said, “first of all, he’s not even drafted yet. (LaVar) is giving him this pressure before he’s even done anything. If you look at his last (college) game against Kentucky, guys took it to him (De’Aaron Fox scored 39 points against Ball and UCLA). Just imagine when he gets to the league. Guys aren’t just gonna go at him, they’re gonna go at him.
“All I’m saying is he is gonna get his initiation from Isaiah (Thomas) to (Steph) Curry to LeBron.”
Bryce Alford, who played point guard for UCLA for three seasons before moving over to shooting guard upon Ball’s arrival in 2016-17, had a coach-player relationship with his father, Bruins coach Steve Alford, that he detailed wasn’t easy in a Players’ Tribune essay.
“The coach in him knew Lonzo was the natural choice to start at point guard, but I’m sure the dad in him was probably worried about how his son would respond," Alford wrote. "For my first three years at UCLA, I didn’t deal with that stuff the right way. I was trying to prove people wrong instead of playing my game. …My senior year, I think I finally accepted the idea that, if they’re talking about you, you must be doing something right.”
And make no mistake, LaVar and Lonzo Ball are being talked about — largely in the media and trending on social media regularly, too. Except Lonzo’s humble personality is exactly the opposite of LaVar's. Los Angeles Lakers personnel — Magic Johnson, mainly — has dismissed the notion that LaVar’s larger-than-life shenanigans will affect the drafting selection process.
A father-son duo who can speak to what a winning relationship looks like is former NBA coach Doug Collins and his son, Northwestern coach Chris Collins, who has successfully carved out his own path by guiding the Wildcats to their first-ever NCAA tournament in historic fashion this past March.
“We have a lot of similarities, but we also have a lot of differences, and that makes it good,” Collins said of his father, Doug, while leading a coaching clinic at the Under Armour headquarters in downtown Chicago as part of the same Jr. NBA conference. “There are things I learn from his personality, and vice versa. It’s more of a friend relationship now. We have such a great relationship, we’re such good friends, and I’m always learning from him.”
Doug Collins resigned as head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers once Chris, a longtime Duke assistant under Mike Krzyzewski, got the Northwestern job.
“I wanted to be a part of what he’s doing," the elder Collins said. "I was at a stage in my life where I had to say, ‘where do I want to spend my time?’ And the truth of it is I’ve already had my day in the sun. I no longer live for any recognition. That’s how it (should be) for fathers.”
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