The Los Angeles Lakers hoped to have found a franchise cornerstone when they selected Lonzo Ball with the second pick in the 2017 NBA Draft. Lonzo never quite lived up to all that hype, though, which was partly generated by his father, LaVar Ball.
LaVar was the ultimate hype man, and along with Lonzo, he was also aggressively promoting his Big Baller Brand at the time. It would be the BBB shoes that his son wore when he entered the NBA, but the younger Ball would eventually switch to Nikes. On the latest episode of the Ball in the Family Podcast, Lonzo was asked why he stopped wearing the shoes.
“Bro, I tried to wear them though,” Lonzo said. “I actually wore them for a fair amount of time. And I wore them longer than I wanted to wear them, but me and my pops had got into it and s***. But it came to a point, really, the Lakers made me stop wearing them. Called me into the office and s***, played a video they were like bro look at this s*** and it was like my shoe was already turning before I hit the ground type s***. Like, you can’t wear these no more.”
So, Lonzo and LaVar got into it over the shoes. The former only reluctantly agreed to keep wearing them as long as he did due to the latter’s insistence. That might have been a mistake.
Lonzo would miss a fair bit of time with knee and ankle injuries during his Lakers tenure. He played 52 games as a rookie and 47 as a sophomore, and was then traded to the New Orleans Pelicans in 2019.
Severe knee injuries would continue to hamper Lonzo in the years to come, and the Lakers reportedly believed that the initial injury was caused by his wearing the BBB shoes. Talk about a self-inflicted wound.
“I didn’t wanna wear them in the first place,” Lonzo said. “But I’m always gonna support my pops just because I love him. But yeah, that shoe just wasn’t for me, though.”
Lonzo also thinks that wearing those BBB shoes might have caused his injuries. He made it clear he wasn’t having those issues before he wore those shoes.
LaVar has pointed out, though, that Lonzo tore his knees while wearing Nikes. He admitted the ankle problems occurred with BBB, but wasn’t taking the blame for anything else.
Wherever the blame lies, you can’t help but wonder what might have been had Lonzo managed to stay healthy. While he was never going to be a superstar, he had turned into an outstanding role player on the Chicago Bulls after they acquired him from the Pelicans in 2021.
Lonzo averaged 13.0 points, 5.4 rebounds, 5.1 assists, 1.8 steals, and 0.9 blocks per game for the Bulls in 2021-22, but disaster struck during the season. He tore his left meniscus in January 2022 and underwent arthroscopic surgery.
Lonzo was expected to miss six to eight weeks, but wouldn’t return that season. He then underwent arthroscopic debridement in September, and the hope was he’d only miss the start of the 2022-23 season. Lonzo would end up missing not just that entire campaign, but also 2023-24. He notably needed a cartilage transplant surgery during that time, and you wondered if he’d ever play again.
We’d finally get to see Lonzo back on the court for a regular-season game in the Bulls’ 2024-25 season-opener against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Oct. 23, 2024. He had been out for over 1,000 days at that point.
Unfortunately, Lonzo was a shell of himself on his return. He was then traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers in July 2025, and they’d send him to the Utah Jazz in February 2026. The Jazz immediately waived Lonzo, and he hasn’t gotten another opportunity since. It doesn’t seem all too likely that the 28-year-old, who averaged 4.6 points, 4.0 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 1.3 steals, and 0.3 blocks per game in 2025-26, will get another shot in the NBA.
