Lavar Ball Claims Lakers Players Quit on Walton
LaVar Ball says Los Angeles Lakers coach Luke Walton has lost the team.
LaVar Ball, who was up at 5 a.m. local time Saturday to watch his son Lonzo Ballin his first game back with the Lakers since suffering a sprained shoulder on Dec. 23, expressed his frustration with Walton in an exclusive interview with ESPN.
"You can see they're not playing for Luke no more," Ball said from a spa resort in Birstonas, where he is staying while his two youngest sons, LiAngelo and LaMelo, get ready to make their professional debuts with Lithuanian team Prienu Vytautas. "Luke doesn't have control of the team no more. They don't want to play for him."
"That's a good team," he added of the Lakers, who have lost nine straight games. "Nobody wants to play for him. I can see it. No high-fives when they come out of the game. People don't know why they're in the game. He's too young. He's too young. ... He ain't connecting with them anymore. You can look at every player, he's not connecting with not one player."
LaVar Ball has had issues with his sons' coaches the past few years and even pulled LaMelo from Chino Hills High prior to the start of the season because of problems with first-year coach Dennis Latimore.
Via ESPN