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When looking back at the Los Angeles Lakers’ era following Bryant’s retirement, they were forced to go through a lengthy rebuild. The man who was supposed to bring them out of that was Lonzo Ball, who they selected second overall out of UCLA in 2017. As a Chino Hills native, it made sense for Ball to taken by his hometown team after playing a year for UCLA. However, he believes that his dad LaVar played a huge role in him ultimately being drafted by the Lakers. “I think he had a huge influence on it, bro,” Lonzo said on the Curious Mike podcast. “To be honest, I think he damn near made it to where they had to pick me. I really do feel like that.”
Ball did not spend much time trying to make his answer sound better than it actually was. His focus was on the billion dollars, and he immediately accepted that he would act aloof in front of the button for a while and eventually press it. Knowing that the answer would come with the guilt of letting a random person die, he threw his hands up, showing that he would act as if he had nothing to do with it. "Click. You gotta do a click. Like, I'm thinking about like I wouldn't do that. I just click one. I'm doing it strictly for the billion. Nothing else here," Ball said, later adding, "This is what I'm gonna say: I didn't catch the body. It wasn't me. I have no ties. My hand slipped type s—t. I need the billion. We can figure out everything else after that."
Instead of focusing on the one person who would die, he thought about what he could do with the money after pressing the button. He simply held to the logic that if one life was lost, he would spend a part of the billion to save another thousand lives, to justify making the choice. "I'm doing it and this is the reason why. I could take $300 million and go save thousands of lives," Porter Jr. said. "Go give it to somewhere over there in Africa or somewhere that has a lot of poverty going on and save a bunch of lives. So that makes up for the one life that was lost for the billion. Then take the other $700 million to the crib. That's how I would justify it."
Lonzo Ball: "If I can go back, I would obviously do it different. I would actually get an agent, be in the meetings myself, do what I want to do. But to answer your question, it was like, I didn't like the shoes, I addressed I didn't like the shoes, but then we would get into an argument and it would be like, damn, if you don't wear the shoes, then you're going against the family."
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Lonzo Ball: "I never went to any Nike deal, no Adidas deal. I never heard no offers or nothing. I was just doing what I was told really. I guess that would be my one regret, like taking control of my career earlier. Really I was just following my pops, just doing what I was told."
Lonzo Ball: "I've been feeling my knee since I was in high school. People always thought that was my swag, wearing the one knee sleeve. That was just to keep my shit some compression on it because that would help it. It just felt better like that."
Lonzo Ball on injuries he's faced: I mean it definitely takes some joy away from it obviously because you can’t do what you want to do. I think everybody just faces that at some point in their career eventually. You know, everybody, whether it’s age, age going to get you. I mean, unless you LeBron other than him, like, you know, something’s going to happen where you start declining. You know what I’m saying? And it’s always going to be like, damn, I wish I could do this. I wish I could do that. But I never really live life like, looking in the past or nothing like that. You feel me? I feel like when I came back, I was like, “Okay, this was my thought process.” Like, “Okay, boom I can’t do this, this, and that, but I can do this, this, and that. So, we going to shape some type of way to make this sh*t work, you feel me? And that was my thought process. Honestly, the sh*t would have been fine in Cleveland if I would have just made an extra two shots a game.
Yossi Gozlan: Cleveland Cavaliers salary cap situation with Peyton Watson. They could create a $16.7 million trade exception for Max Strus if they fold in the Dennis Schroder trade and absorb Tre Mann into the Lonzo Ball trade exception. The Cavs have no first-round picks left to trade.
LaVar Ball: "How you think y'all would do all on the same team as grown men?" Lonzo Ball: "Obviously, I think we would be fine. It would be a good team, but I think that ship sailed."
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