Kyrie offers advice to LaVar Ball on Lonzo: 'You got to let go'
Kyrie Irving has already been down the road that UCLA standout Lonzo Ball will soon embark on, having entered the Association as a highly touted point guard with one year of college experience under his belt.
The Cleveland Cavaliers All-Star also had to deal with his father, Dred, wanting to be heavily involved in all key decisions he made growing up, although that became less of an issue as he got older. With that in mind, Irving hopes Lonzo's father, LaVar, will do the same and eventually bow out of the picture to allow his son the breathing room to be his own person.
"I’m sorry, LaVar, you’re not going to be in every hotel room that Lonzo is going to be in," Irving said during a recent appearance on Uninterrupted's "Road Trippin" podcast, which is hosted by his Cavaliers teammates Richard Jefferson and Channing Frye, as transcribed by ESPN's Dave McMenamin.
"You’re not going to be everywhere and part of his life as he continues to grow up. You got to let go. He’s 19 years old. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want it to bypass him being a father, but he’s got to let Lonzo be Lonzo for the long haul."
LaVar has become one of the hottest quotes in the entire sport as of late, never shying away from the spotlight to speak his mind or promote Lonzo ahead of the draft. Some of his more newsworthy takes include claiming his son is better than back-to-back league MVP Stephen Curry, saying Michael Jordan couldn't sell $495 shoes because "he ain't Lonzo," and turning down any future advice from Kobe Bryant, just to name a few.
"Now, when he starts going off and saying, 'I could beat Michael Jordan one-on-one' and starts going off and he compared Lonzo to Uber and taxi, come on," Irving added. "Just relax a little bit. Take a step back and realize the impact that you can make, not for the moment now, but for the future. Lonzo is going to be in the NBA regardless. But at the end of the day, he still is going into another world that you can’t control."
Irving did give LaVar some credit, though, showing respect to "the foundation he's laid" for his kids, and how he pushed them to get into basketball in the first place, resulting in the family having the resources to create its own Big Baller Brand.