Tag: Lonzo Ball

Bleacher Report by Mirin Fader
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THE LIFE OF LAMELO

LaMelo Ball tries to catch his breath, placing his hands on his hips as if holding on to them is all that is preventing him from falling down. His hamstrings burn. His knees creak. His white ankle socks have turned a dirty shade of gray from his beach sprints this October afternoon. As he stares out at the Pacific Ocean, his feet sink into sand so dense it might as well be tar. The glittering, blue-green waves have no beginning, no end. Some might find it idyllic, relaxing, here on the beach in the sleepy, saltwater-scented beach town of Wollongong, Australia. Not LaMelo. He doesn’t like to think about what’s out there. It’s not just that he’s far from home, from all he knows. LaMelo is afraid of the ocean. Or more so, of everything in it. Tiger sharks, great white sharks, bull sharks. He is sure that if he dips his feet in, lets the water swirl around his toes, he’ll be swallowed up. This is the other side of the Pacific, but it’s the same ocean.And there’s something else familiar, something else after him. He can sense it, see it out of the corner of his eye. He realizes he’s being watched.

Bleacher Report by Mirin Fader
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BRANDON INGRAM THROUGH THE FIRE

Brandon Ingram could hardly breathe. He’d try and try, inhaling deeply as he walked along the beach near his home in Los Angeles, but each attempt fell short. Stuck, somehow; a full breath just out of reach. He’d return home and continue to practice breathing by pacing up and down his four flights of stairs. But he’d still end up gulping for air, frustrated and confused. And more than a little scared. Not being able to do something so fundamental, so simple, was jarring. How am I ever going to get back to being the player I was? he’d think. It was March. He had just had surgery for deep venous thrombosis, also known as a blood clot, in his right arm, prematurely ending his third season for the Lakers. The two-hour procedure included removing part of his rib, which in turn, affected his lungs. His breathing. Doctors had him use a machine that prompted him to suck in air, and a corresponding tube would shoot up and down, telling him how much pressure he could produce. “First week, I’m coming up short. Real short,” Ingram says. “I kept building up, building up.” It took about a month to capture his normal cadence.

Bleacher Report by Mirin Fader
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IT’S ONYEKA OKONGWU’S TIME TO SHINE

Onyeka Okongwu walks into USC’s locker room and finds his cubby in the far corner. He touches the band around his wrist, black with green letters—NNAMDI OKONGWU #21, WE WILL NEVER FORGET YOU—and kisses it. He takes a seat, clasps his hands, shuts his eyes and begins to pray. In these moments, Nnamdi, his older brother is there. With him. In his chair, in his locker. On the whiteboard, on the door. Inside his sneakers, inside his jersey. Onyeka can feel it. Feel him. Nnamdi died in 2014 after suffering a brain injury from a skateboarding accident. He was 17 years old, a promising basketball player himself. “I think about him every day,” says Onyeka, now 19. Some days he wants to talk about it. Some days he doesn’t.

Bleacher Report by Mirin Fader
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NATE ROBINSON BATTLES INNER DEMONS IN QUEST FOR NBA RETURN

Robinson was the living, breathing, “Break Glass in Case of Emergency” lever teams would pull to inject energy when in a jam. But Robinson’s overflowing personality also irritated NBA coaches. Some found him disruptive and immature, especially during his early years in the league. He was the exclamation point and the run-on sentence; the behind-the-back dime when a simple chest pass would have sufficed.

Bleacher Report by Mirin Fader
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SO YOU THINK YOU KNOW LONZO BALL…

Reporters box each other out, jockeying for position, their arms outstretched with recorders, their bodies shoulder to shoulder. One woman complains that a man, over six feet tall, is blocking her view. He turns around, angrily, and refuses to budge. Members of the antsy crowd need the best view of Ball, the one who throws bullet passes 94 feet; the one who weaves through traffic with be-quick-but-don’t-hurry speed; the one who has been anointed savior of the NBA‘s most storied franchise. It’s Lakers media day, in late September, but it could have been called “Lonzo Day.” He’s here. The 19-year-old is wearing his black ZO2 Prime Remix sneakers below a grape-colored sleeve over his knee and calf. “My swag pad,” he says, smiling with all of his teeth, calm in a way only he can be: reserved, yet warm; cold-blooded competitive, yet composed.