Sometimes, appearances can be deceiving. Or, if you prefer, it’s not wise to judge a book by it’s cover. Regardless of which cliché you prefer, it appears that new Los Angeles Lakers center Andrew Bogut is finding out that his rookie point guard Lonzo Ball is nothing like he expected him to be.
After all, before even suiting up for the Lakers, Ball already had his own shoe, the ZO2, under his family’s company, Big Baller Brand. His family also has their own reality show on Facebook Watch and he’s released a rap single.
Family patriarch LaVar has played a major role in training Lonzo as well as his brothers LiAngelo and LaMelo, but he also acts as BBB’s spokesperson and hype man. LaVar’s outlandish comments and over-the-top sayings are straight out of WWE, creating a circus-like environment that we can’t help but watch.
Still, as Bogut shared with Roy Ward of The Sydney Morning Herald, Lonzo isn’t the extrovert that all the peripheral things in his life would suggest:
“All the hype with what his dad has done with the brand means people want to knock him down…people love it, people hate it. Fortunately, that reflects on Lonzo as well but he is the complete opposite to what I thought…He is softly spoken, has a good sense of humor and doesn’t say a lot. Nobody has had any issues with him.”
Bogut has quickly realized that, despite LaVar’s over-the-top antics, Lonzo is his own person with his own way of going about things. His game may be full of sizzling passes, but he’s a quiet, under-stated individual.
For the Lakers, the hope is that Bogut will be able to use his veteran savvy to help speed up the development of young players like Ball, Brandon Ingram, Ivica Zubac, and others. He is part of a different generation of NBA stars, but if he can manage to connect with the team’s young players, he could be a real asset to the rebuild.