LaVar Ball Says Lakers Are 'Soft,' Don't Know How to Coach Lonzo

What are LaVar Ball's issues with how the L.A. Lakers are coaching Lonzo Ball? Glad you asked.

November 21, 2017

My guess is that a lot of fathers of professional athletes have disagreements with the way their kids are coached. It's just that those fathers don't have the appetite for attention that LaVar Ball does, and thus their opinions may be reserved for private conversations with friends and family instead of generating headlines by revealing those opinions to a national media outlet.

However, as we all have had beaten into our heads by now, that's not how LaVar Ball rolls. And all those terrible think pieces that proclaimed him a genius for taking the attention off No. 2 pick Lonzo (which was a stupid premise that never made any sense, by the way) were staggeringly myopic, even by the standards of this generation of overrated internet blowhards.

Because of the attention LaVar has attracted to himself and his children, we get narratives like the one in this new Bleacher Report article highlighting the differences between L.A. Lakers coach Luke Walton and LaVar (who's just a freakin' player's dad at the end of the day) when it comes to developing Los Angeles' young roster.

Here are a few excerpts that highlight the difference in philosophy between Walton and LaVar, starting with Luke's learn from your mistakes mindset:

Then there's LaVar, whose AAU coaching experience makes him qualified to critique NBA coaching staffs, saying the Lakers are going too soft on his son (though he did add he has no problem with Walton):

LaVar also seemed to imply the franchise was being far too patient with their young team, and that they should feel more pressure to win now regardless of their youth:

He also shat upon the idea of L.A. walking away with any "moral victories":

In all honesty, considering all the news that's surrounded LaVar this week, this is actually pretty tame by comparison. Still, though we know it'll never happen, it would be wise to throw a "no comment" in there on occasion.