One of the more entertaining stories during the NBA offseason was the ongoing beef between Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid, and LaVar Ball, father of Los Angeles Lakers rookie Lonzo Ball.
Everything started when Embiid sent a tweet calling for his teammate Ben Simmons to dunk on Lonzo so hard ‘his daddy runs on the court to save him.’ This prompted a response from LaVar as he and Embiid went back and forth through the media for weeks.
This would lead many to believe that Embiid wasn’t too fond of the Lakers rookie, but in an interview with ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne, Embiid revealed that he loves Lonzo and called the interactions this summer fun:
“I love Lonzo,” Embiid told ESPN. “The whole situation with them, I think it’s just fun. I love what he’s doing, especially with his own shoe. He’s staking his own place. People think I hate him, but I love him.”
Embiid would go on to reveal that his original tweet was just something borrowed from Simmons’ sister:
“I just meant it to be funny,” Embiid said. “Even the thing I said ‘Oh please dunk on him,’ I just took it from [Simmons’] sister, who said that like weeks before that.”
Even though many players have had issues with the words from LaVar, it rarely bleeds down to Lonzo himself. He has consistently been praised by his fellow NBA players and Embiid has no reason to have any animosity towards the Lakers rookie.
Of course that probably won’t stop Embiid from coming out and looking dominate when the Sixers come to Los Angeles to play the Lakers on Wednesday. And with Embiid now being one of the NBA’s pre-eminent trash talkers, he could very well let LaVar know about it if he or Simmons does dunk on Lonzo.
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