(ThyBlackMan.com) Parents can play a major role in the future careers of their children. It is important for parents to understand the talents and skills of their children and cultivate them so that they can have the confidence and experience to pursue careers in areas that their children feel most comfortable in. There have been a lot of famous sports parents over the decades and especially African/Black sports dads such as the late Earl Woods (Tiger Woods’s dad) and Richard Williams (Venus and Serena Williams’s dad) are some of the most memorable and visible sports parents of the past 30 years.
Few sports parents have ever had the spotlight of LaVar Ball. The father of high school basketball stars Lonzo and LaMelo Ball made sports headlines throughout the late 2010s due to his brash comments about the basketball talents of his three sons, Lonzo, LiAngelo, and LaMelo. LaVar’s apparel company and brand and his unique style to prepare his sons for the NBA contributed to the attention that he received. LaVar Ball’s parenting style could garner notions of “helicopter parenting” but close to a decade since his time in the basketball spotlight, he has officially accomplished two of his sons being drafted with top 5 draft picks in two separate NBA Drafts while LiAngelo, his middle son, has struggled to even make an NBA roster.
One of the underrated stories of the 2024-25 NBA season is the return of guard Lonzo Ball to the NBA after he has battled significant injuries for several years. In fact, Ball missed two full NBA seasons due to leg and knee surgeries and recovery that put his NBA career in serious jeopardy. On October 16, 2024, Lonzo Ball played in the NBA for the first time since January 14, 2022, in a preseason game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. This season, his production has included career lows in virtually every area but it is impressive that he is even playing in the NBA again at all.
Lonzo Ball has faced numerous injuries throughout his NBA career and he concludes an interesting source of why he has had the injury issues he has had. Lonzo wore the highly maligned shoes of his father’s Big Baller Brand company for one season but Lonzo wasn’t happy with his father’s shoes. In a recent ESPN interview, he revealed that, “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.'” However, Lonzo didn’t like the Big Baller Brand shoes he wore to play basketball in, “They were like kickball shoes,” Ball said. Worse than that, Lonzo suggests they could have played a role in his meniscus injury during his rookie season. “I think it’s a possibility for sure, to be honest with you,” Ball said. “I wasn’t really getting hurt like that until I started wearing them.”
It seems that Lonzo Ball is saying his NBA injury woes can be placed at wearing the basketball shoes from his father’s small business company compared to wearing basketball shoes from the usual major athletic brands most NBA players select. Over the course of his NBA career, Lonzo Ball has career earnings in the NBA of approximately $112 million so it makes it hard to criticize LaVar Ball completely as his methods and parenting played a major role in his son making it to the NBA in the first place. Even with his brashness, annoying behavior, he does have two sons who were high NBA draft picks and another son who played professional basketball at a lower level and having three sons do that is an uncommon achievement.
Staff Writer; Mark Hines
