Many Los Angeles Lakers fans instantly fell in love with Lonzo Ball when the team took him with the No. 2 pick in the 2017 NBA Draft. He was a local product, as he grew up in Chino Hills and attended the University of California, Los Angeles, and he was the subject of massive hype upon entering the NBA.
While Ball has been a good player at times, he has fallen well short of meeting the hype that was generated for him. He has also been very injury-prone, and he hasn’t played in an NBA game since injuring his meniscus in the middle of the 2021-22 season.
The guard was sent packing in the summer of 2019 as part of the trade that brought Anthony Davis to Los Angeles. As a member of the Chicago Bulls now, he admitted that it was a very understandable trade while on “The WAE Show” recently.
“I mean, we know what happened when we was walking through the hallways,” said Ball. “We were told one thing. That’s the first time that I realized that this is definitely a business, you know? But, at the same time, it was like it’s Anthony Davis. A part of me was like, I mean, to be fair, I would have traded myself for Anthony Davis.”
That trade in 2019 quickly resulted in an NBA championship for the Lakers. Meanwhile, Ball would spend two seasons with the New Orleans Pelicans, where he greatly improved his 3-point shooting, before being traded to the Bulls in 2021.
Plenty of Lakers fans still hold a soft spot for Ball and would welcome him back in a hurry, despite his injury history and the deficiencies in his game.