Over the past week, Los Angeles Lakers guard Lonzo Ball has garnered praise for deciding to leave the Big Baller Brand and take his business matters into this own hands. The latest person to sing his praises, though, came as a bit of a surprise.
During an appearance on ESPN’s “Get Up!” Basketball Hall of Famer and TNT analyst Charles Barkley gave his thoughts on the unraveling Big Baller Brand and sounded off on Lonzo’s father, LaVar Ball (H/T For The Win):
“[Lonzo] should have been his own man from the beginning. You can’t let your family members try to piggyback on your success. This is his time. He’s a nice kid, he’s a good player. I’d like to see him healthy. But this thing has been a disaster from Day 1.
It was never going to work, and I feel bad, because this ol’ big mouth, jackass dad has put his kid in an awkward situation all year. Like I said, I don’t want to see anything bad happen to the kid, but I don’t like his dad at all, and this thing has been a joke from the beginning.”
This is far from the first time Ol’ Chuckster has gone after LaVar. In December of 2017, Barkley said that LaVar “represents everything bad about sports.” However, his support of Ball is a little surprising.
In the past, Barkley has made fun of Lonzo for putting up low scoring numbers, most recently mocking Ball for putting up a “triple-single” in a game he scored just two points.
I guess Barkley’s praise for Lonzo falls more in line with the old phrase “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
