LaVar Ball shares unconventional way he taught his sons to respect mother
LaVar Ball opened up about the health of his wife, Tina, and his philosophy on getting his three sons to respect her growing up. The outspoken basketball father also described his old-school discipline style, noting that he once hit son Lonzo “upside the head” after he was pulled over by police for missing curfew and that he once disciplined his youngest son, LaMelo, with a “belt or something.”
In an interview with ESPN, Ball said his wife has returned home in his care after suffering a stroke in late February. Tina Ball is not expected to attend the NBA draft, where Lonzo is a projected lottery pick and front-runner to get selected by the hometown Los Angeles Lakers at No. 2.
“She wants to talk and she can get out a few words,” Ball said of Tina. “I’m rebooting her right now.”
Ball has told Lonzo, LaMelo and his middle son, LiAngelo, to focus on basketball while he tends to Tina. He said he told his sons: “What I’m not going to do is burden you with sitting there rubbing her hand, doing that. We’re not making a movie.”
Ball provided a bizarre description of how he got his sons to respect him and his wife growing up.
"I told them, 'If you're going to be disrespectful to your mom, I want you to be all the time.' So, excuse my language right here, but if you want to say, 'Good morning, (expletive),' that's fine with me," Ball said. "I'm not going to say nothing. If you want to call your mom a (expletive), that's fine.
"But don't get sick, when your stomach is hurting and you want me to care for you because you know I ain't. ... She'll clean up the throw-up, the (expletive), whatever. She'll take of what you want. ... So don't wait until you need something, or you need her to make you something and now you want to be nice to her. ...So they never disrespect their mom, or talk back to her, or say nothing. Because I say, 'In the long run, you're going to need her before you need me.'"
Ball clarified in the ESPN interview remarks about his old-school disciplining approach by noting that, “I spanked them once. To let them know there are repercussions at times. But my boys are respectful, and usually my voice is enough.”
Ball, who introduced his family’s controversial Big Baller Brand — including Lonzo’s $495 ZO2 sneakers — said his other sons, LiAngelo, a freshman-to-be at UCLA, and LaMelo, a junior at Chino Hills (Calif.) High School, will also be one-and-done players like Lonzo “no matter what.” He detailed a plan to have his sons eventually rule the NBA.
Ball said he plans to get “three of the Ball boys on the Lakers together, and we gonna go championship, championship, championship, championship, championship.”
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