Lonzo Ball recently got a tattoo sleeve on his arm that features some truly incredible art work depicting historic black icons.
Tattoo artist Steve Butcher, who tattooed Ball’s sleeve, shared a video clip on Instagram Monday showing off the final piece. Butcher said Ball was 99 percent healed at the time the video was recorded.
Ball’s left arm tattoo sleeve features portraits of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Barack Obama, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks and Jackie Robinson.
The detail and realness of each portrait is truly stunning. Butcher could not have done a better job on Ball’s arm.
Interestingly, when Ball entered the league in 2017, he did not have any tattoos on his body, in large part because his outspoken father LaVar frowned upon them. That has quickly changed. Lonzo got his first ones last year in solidarity with his brother, LiAngelo, and added a sleeve on his left arm last offseason.
“My brother got a bunch of them so I didn’t want him to be the only one in the family,” Ball told the LA Times. “My dad was pretty mad the first time. I used to have wristbands but they all snapped off so I figured I’d put them there permanently.”
The only problem with the tattoos is if something changes and you feel differently about the permanent ink. For instance, Ball ended up covering up one of his tattoos and changing it in March.
As much as we love the sleeve — it truly is a work of art — we are a little disappointed that Lonzo missed one other Black icon.
