UCLA Basketball: Father Of Former Bruins Superstar Blames This For His Injury Troubles
Former UCLA Bruins standout point guard Lonzo Ball has missed the past two-and-a-half seasons of NBA action due to a knee injury that has required three surgeries. Though there's chatter he could return next year, in the final season of his four-year, $80 million deal with the Chicago Bulls, one wonders if he'll return as the 3-and-D dynamo he had been pre-surgeries.
Ball's brother, Charlotte Hornets All-Star LaMelo, has also been hurt more often than not of late. He'll have missed 60 games with an ankle injury when the dust settles on yet another lottery-bound Hornets season.
During a fresh conversation with CBS Sports' Bill Reiter for his podcast Beyond the Arc, Ball household patriarch LaVar explained his thinking behind why LaMelo and Lonzo are so injury-prone.
“People like to flip the narrative,” LaVar Ball said. “They say, ‘Oh, LaVar, you worked the boys out too hard, that’s why they hurt.’ No, the reason they hurt is ’cause they got away from me. They start doing these rooty-toot workouts. ’Cause if you keep running them hills, you gonna keep that power and that strength. But you start dealing with these rubber bands and doing this lightweight stuff, of course you’re gonna start breaking down.”
Ball also wanted to zoom out and take a broader perspective of the kids' overall success as NBA pros.
"I gave my boys a trade to take care of them for their life, which is playing basketball," he says. "Now, if they're not going to be 6'6", 6'7", and long and athletic, you better put them in that school. So if you only get to be four feet -- read and be able to type on a computer. That's all you got to do. But you got to give them a trade or you give them some education. Pick one. I picked athletics. So look what happened."
