{"id":205570,"date":"2021-03-17T09:17:23","date_gmt":"2021-03-17T08:17:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=205570"},"modified":"2021-03-17T09:18:24","modified_gmt":"2021-03-17T08:18:24","slug":"lamelo-ball-says-his-basketball-idol-was-his-dad-lavar-it-was-my-pops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/lamelo-ball-says-his-basketball-idol-was-his-dad-lavar-it-was-my-pops\/","title":{"rendered":"LaMelo Ball says his basketball idol was his dad LaVar: It was my pops"},"content":{"rendered":"

LaMelo Ball will face LeBron James for the first time later this week but he is not too excited about playing against the four-time NBA champion.<\/p>\n

Per ESPN<\/a>, “I mean, nah,” Ball, 19, told reporters on a videoconference Tuesday ahead of the Charlotte Hornets’ game against the Los Angeles Lakers on Thursday. “I grew up a little different. Not really on basketball like that. So, not really.”<\/p>\n

Ball’s statement wasn’t a slight against James. He added that “it will be cool” to face the Lakers’ star but said he keeps his focus steady no matter the opponent.<\/p>\n

“I go to every game with the same approach — going in to try to get a win,” he said.<\/p>\n

The younger Ball said his basketball idol was his dad, LaVar.<\/p>\n

“It was my pops,” Ball said when asked if he had a role model the way his brother looked up to James. “So, I was big on family and stuff like that. Not really with the basketball.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LaMelo not too excited on facing LeBron for the first time<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":200231,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[399],"tags":[],"rumors":[],"typology":[],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-205570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2021\/02\/LaMelo-Ball.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205570"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=205570"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=205570"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=205570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}