LaVar Ball goes off on Pelicans, says he hopes they trade son Lonzo
After seemingly taking an extended hiatus from the spotlight, LaVar Ball is now awakening like The Undertaker.
The controversial Ball family patriarch appeared Thursday on ESPN 710’s “Mason and Ireland.” In the interview, Ball made some eyebrow-raising comments about his son Lonzo and the New Orleans Pelicans.
“He can’t stay in New Orleans, come on man,” asserted LaVar. “Lonzo has always been a playmaker. Why are you trying to change him into a defensive specialist that stays in the corner and shoots threes? And you trying to change Zion [Williamson] and Brandon Ingram, who all through their career have never been playmakers. They’re scorers.
“I don’t know what they’re gonna do, I hope he gets traded though,” added LaVar about Lonzo. “I don’t like watching him play like he playing.”
Lonzo is having a career year with the Pelicans and is positioning himself for a nice contract as a restricted free agent this summer. But he has a much lower usage rate than teammates like Williamson and Ingram. There are also a number of reasons why New Orleans may not trade him.
That said, Lonzo did not choose to go the Pelicans in the first place. They acquired him from the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2019 Anthony Davis trade. But now that he can control his destiny to an extent this summer, the 23-year-old guard already appears to have one potential destination in mind.
