Nothing is more difficult for an athlete than being hit by a devastating injury. We’ve seen it happen too often just in these NBA Playoffs alone, with Dame Lillard and Jayson Tatum injuring their Achilles. There were many less serious injuries as well, which had a profound impact.
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Steph Curry’s hamstring strain kept him out of the final four games of the Golden State Warriors’ series with the Minnesota Timberwolves. Aaron Gordon tried to gut it out in Game 7 against the OKC Thunder with a hamstring strain of his own, but he couldn’t contribute to the Denver Nuggets’ cause in his normal way.
If there’s one NBA player who understands what it’s like to deal with injury, it’s Lonzo Ball. The Chicago Bulls point guard went more than 1,000 days out of action as he dealt with ongoing knee issues, finally returning in October of last year.
Ball was the most recent guest on Los Angeles Sparks star Cameron Brink’s podcast Straight to Cam. He gave the second-year player some sage advice as she gets closer to returning from an ACL and meniscus tear that cut her rookie season short.
Brink asked Ball what kept him grounded and pushing through as he rehabbed his injury.
“Looking at the bigger picture … Them days be long, and the progress is so minimal sometimes and even sometimes it’s regressive, so it gets a little tough mentally,” responded Ball.
“Just to know that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel,” he continued, “and to know where you’re running to. I feel like when you have a good plan and you can hit certain goals along the way, that’ll help a lot. That’s helped me a lot, at least.”
Ball has indeed shown tremendous determination to fight through his injuries and get back onto the hardwood. This was to prove a point to himself as well as to silence his detractors.
Ball’s perseverance should inspire NBA and WNBA athletes
Having a positive mentality has helped Ball overcome the many critics who have doubted him along the way, Stephen A. Smith being the most prominent. The First Take host picked a fight with Ball by saying that he had heard that the guard had trouble even getting up to a sitting position.
Ball sent a video of him doing just that in response. The analyst, in typical Stephen A. fashion, flew off the handle and escalated the matter by bizarrely claiming to have gotten the information directly from Ball’s doctors.
Ball indirectly addressed that confrontation on Straight to Cam, saying, “Everybody’s entitled to their opinion, but a lot of people say things, especially in the media, that they don’t really know too much about.”
He added,” I try not to let it affect me too much, just because I know what I have to do most of the time, and the outside opinions don’t really bother me like that.”
Brink said she was glad that the Sparks had her back and weren’t pushing her to rush back to the court too soon. Ball said that the Bulls treated him the same way, which he was very grateful for.
“If you have a good organization that’s behind you and letting you heal, that’s huge. Shoutout to the Bulls for that, because when I was going through it, a lot of teams could have just pushed me to the side … but they stuck with me the whole way,” said the point guard.
Ball’s perseverance and hard work paid off. He played over 22 minutes per game in 35 games for the Bulls this year. A wrist injury kept him from playing more, but he has said that it won’t require surgery and he’ll be a full go for next year.
Brink doesn’t have an exact return date yet, but she’s expected to be back on the court as soon as next month.
