LaVar Ball isn’t going to like this.
Before he was ever drafted into the NBA, Lonzo Ball already had his own signature shoe from Big Baller Brand — the ZO2. That only came about after Nike, Adidas, and Reebok elected to pass on giving his father a ridiculous amount of money as well as other things.
There were many concerns as to whether or not his shoes were fit to play in, and now we’re finding out that those concerns were legitimate.
During an appearance on the Lightharted Podcast with Josh Hart, the New Orleans Pelicans point guard said he played in the ZO2 before they were ready, and it caused him to have to change shoes every single quarter, because they kept ripping apart.
“No one knows the real story about them shoes … Them ZO2s I was playing in, they was not ready.
No one knows this but DMO had a backpack and he had like an extra four pairs of shoes in there because I had to switch them every quarter because they would just rip. If I had say in the first two games – the real truth — them shoes wasn’t ready.”
That would end up being the reason why he played in a different shoe brand every game following his NBA Summer League debut.
“I’m on the phone — and this is when Alan was running everything — I’m like, “I’m not playing in them shoes. Like, I don’t care bro,” and he’s like, “Alright, just switch brands every game,” and I’m like, “Alright, cool.”
So that’s how that happened. If you literally have my shoes from those games, they’re just exploded.”
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Ball said at the time, he felt pressured to debut the shoe he announced the month before.
“Because they were my shoe. I had to debut them. We already gassed them, we went so far with it. I’m like, “Cool, I can get a quarter in,” but that was it. We had to switch them every quarter and it’s crazy because right when I switched my shoes, all of a sudden, magically, I got good again.”
Many have blamed the BBB shoes for the reason why Lonzo has been so injury plagued during the early stages of his career.
