The Fuck da Haters Award
As was mentioned in our Markelle Fultz piece, the 2017 draft class was stacked with talent. The entire pre-draft period was dominated by the debate of who would be picked where, and who would end up at which team. The Los Angeles Lakers, a once powerhouse turned shithouse of the NBA lead by their former tank commander — Byron Scott, held the number 2 pick for the 2017 draft. A powerful commodity for a young, rebuilding team to help the Lakers rise back to their former glory.
Lonzo Ball had been linked to the Lakers the moment LaVar released him swimmers from his Big Ball-er Brand (BBB). The Ball family are LA born and bred, providing him with a strong tie to LA Basketball. Unfortunately for the Clippers, once again they were completely disregarded and went back to life without CP3. Ball was asked to work out with the Boston Celtics, however his camp reportedly ‘declined respectively’. Something about LaVar and ‘respective’ just doesn’t seem to align.
We have all seen and heard about the father of the Ball’s — LaVar — and if by some modern-day-miracle you haven’t, we are truly envious. LaVar is the quintessential opposite of the saying: let your actions do the talking. From a man who openly stated his son was better than Steph Curry, as well as arrogantly claiming he could take on the Goat (Michael Jordan) in a one-on-one game, not a lot of credibility can be associated with the BBB CEO.
This, however, didn’t stop our former Washington State starting forward from advertising his eldest son, who was evidently drafted with the second pick by the Los Angeles Lakers. A dream come true for LaVar. As Lonzo’s spokesman, we can only assume this was also a dream fulfilled for his son — however, the astoundingly diverse personality of Lonzo Ball resulted in his feelings and sentiments of being drafted to his home town team becoming unknown.
Lonzo went into his rookie year in the NBA with a target already on his back. Normally, it takes seasons upon seasons for a player to be singled out and targeted by his opponents. Yet, thanks to the ill-suited comments from his father, Lonzo was a hot topic for current players looking to take the 20-year old point guard down a few notches.
Patrick Beverly openly stated he would make his opposing PG ‘suffer’ when he faced Lonzo in his NBA debut — and suffer he did. Lonzo ended up with just the 3-points and shot just 1-of-6 for three-points. Beverly, one of the best perimeter defenders in the League, took the onus on himself to pester, harass and berate Lonzo during every second he spent on the court.
Now, in true public overaction, the NBA world immediately came out and started labelling Lonzo a ‘bust’ and that his ‘shot was broken’. After one game! I’d like any player to have a productive debut game when you have a serial pest in Beverly literally breathing down your neck. Not dissimilar to Lance Stephenson, yet he blew down his opponent’s neck.
Funnily enough, Lonzo passed Patrick Beverly’s career high of 26 points in his next game.
There is no doubting it, Lonzo’s shooting form is about as attractive as a Charles Barkley bubble bath. However, it worked for him in college where he averaged 14.6pts, 6.0reb & 7.4ast whilst shooting 41% from deep — truly impressive numbers. Experts then came out and stated Lonzo needs to change his shot form. Well, we all saw how that panned out for the man taken before Ball in the draft.
Lonzo was straight up nasty for UCLA.
Since been touted as a bust who was only drafted because of papa Ball, Lonzo is averaging 10/7/7 and has raised his 3-point percentage to 33.9 (which is impressive considering he was shooting at 24% in November 2017. He is currently shooting at 55% for the month of March after returning from a sprained left MCL in his knee, which saw the Lakers guard miss 14 consecutive games.
There are few players in the league who you associate with being ‘walking-triple-doubles.’ LeBron springs straight to mind, his ‘young King’ Ben Simmons is another and Russell Westbrook amazingly averaged a triple-double last season. Lonzo Ball, if not already, will join the list of triple-double royalty. On the 13th of November 2017, Lonzo became the youngest ever player in NBA history to record this achievement, finishing with 19 points, 13 assists and 12 rebounds, passing the King himself — LeBron James.
Breaking any record in the NBA is an astounding accomplishment in its own right, but when you take a record off a player of LeBron’s status, you know you’ve found a talent. I wouldn’t put it past LeBron to design a time-machine and travel back to the year 2003 and re-take his record though. Although, I guess it wouldn’t technically being re-taking it off Lonzo considering he was only 6-years old at this stage. Can you say, LeParadox?
Game met Game when the Lakers encountered the Cavaliers on December 15th, going down 121 to 112. After the final buzzer, LeBron made his way to the young guard and the pair were seen talking through their jerseys (surprised the air didn’t rip them) with what looked like motivating words of wisdom from James. Of course, the audio of the conversation found its way onto social media within hours, and the discreet one-on-one interaction could be heard through our own phones and laptops.
LeBron was heard saying “Find your zone and just stay the fuck lock in”. He continued telling Lonzo to “just be aggressive every single day…it’s white noise. That’s all it is.”
If having LeBron James single you out and produce you with some LeBron wisdom after finishing with 13 points, 11 assists and 8 points isn’t the most ‘fuck the haters’ thing so far this year, then get that bubble bath running Charles, I’m hopping in.
