The Wizards won’t play the Lakers until this Wednesday evening. But that didn’t stop LaVar Ball, the father of Lakers rookie point guard Lonzo Ball from taunting Washington beforehand. You can see the video above from BallisLife.
The soundbite was from an interview with Ball after the Lakers lost 119-112 to the Pelicans on Sunday. In short, LaVar said that the Wizards needed to beware Lonzo and the Lakers, who won’t lose two games in the same week.
Marcin Gortat saw the video and wasn’t thrilled. He responded to the video with this:
man..... pleaseeeeee!!! @JohnWall will torture him for 48min
— Marcin Gortat (@MGortat) October 23, 2017
Lonzo so far is averaging a near triple double with 13.3 points, 9.3 rebounds, and 8.7 assists a game, but don’t let these stats imply that he’s going to be the next Russell Westbrook. The Lakers are 1-2 this season. Their only win came against the woeful Phoenix Suns who fired head coach Earl Watson yesterday and that also happened to be the only game where Ball shot above 40 percent from the field.
In Lonzo’s debut against the Clippers, his defender Patrick Beverley shut him down to a 1 of 6 shooting performance and bragged about it after the Clippers won. John Wall was also asked about whether LaVar’s antics make other NBA players target Lonzo and try to “expose” him on the court. On NBC Sports Washington’s Wizards Tipoff podcast, Wall acknowledged that some “guys are going to target him.” That said, Lonzo has been soft-spoken and a stand up character on and off the court.
Though Gortat believes that Wall will “torture” Lonzo on the court, Wall didn’t indicate that he was out to try to get him like Beverley did. If anything, Wall was quite complimentary of Lonzo, though it’s unclear what his opinion is of LaVar.
Either way, the Lakers are far from being an NBA contender this season while the Wizards are right up there. And Lonzo is going to have his hands full when Wall is defending him and vice versa this Wednesday night.