Lakers Rumors: Three reasons to be legitimately worried about Lonzo Ball

His distractions outside of basketball aren’t going away

With all of the developments coming from China about Ball’s brother LiAngelo getting arrested and facing charges of shoplifting along with two other UCLA teammates, the distractions are only amplified for Lonzo in this moment.

Since his time at UCLA, it has been crystal clear how important family is to him, and having that legal situation with his brother going on can’t be something that is helping him either. The problem that is even larger than the arrest and allegations themselves is the fact that LiAngelo could be looking at several years of prison time.

Because of the fact that the Ball family has always been about doing things together, as brash as they might be at times, the separation from the situation Lonzo is probably feeling could be a contributing factor to issues down the road.

Add the fact that the situation was completely unforeseen and came as a shock to everyone in the basketball world, Lonzo has a chance to use this scenario with his brother either as motivation to go out on the floor and play dominant and aggressive or let it stay in his head and drag him down.

Because of the hype going into this regular season, including speculation that he could be the best rookie this season, the headache doesn’t look like it is going away any time soon.

The arrest of LiAngelo could also throw a huge wrench in Lavar Ball’s plan to have all three of his sons play on the Lakers. Not that Lonzo is thinking of that already, but how the family as a whole handles the situation moving forward will ultimately have the most effect on Lonzo.