Lonzo Ball’s ongoing recovery from a devastating left knee injury seems to have sparked an erroneous report from a huge sports media name.
On Tuesday, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith said he “heard” that Ball was struggling to even stand up from a seated position. Smith, of course, did not clarify where his reporting or sourcing came from. But it was rather eye-opening for a player who has been sidelined since January 2022. It remains unclear when Ball will return to play.
Ball jokingly didn’t take kindly to Smith’s comments about his health.
In the early evening, the Chicago Bulls point guard took to Twitter with a video that featured a pointed demonstration of himself repeatedly standing up from a chair … on his hurt leg, no less. Oh, and he tagged Smith’s profile to ensure he’d see the clip.
This is just brilliant:
@stephenasmith come to the actual source next time. I’m not hard to reach pic.twitter.com/88xyoB7LTf
— Lonzo Ball (@ZO2_) August 22, 2023
You have to appreciate Ball’s creativity and sense of humor. It’s understandably been a challenging situation for him to miss so much on-court time. And here he is, taking a clearly false report about his recovery in stride with an amusing video calling out the original source.
Sometimes that’s all you can do.
This was how Twitter reacted
doing one legged stand-ups on the bad knee is a flex. let's go. https://t.co/Nhxm6ZDVe4
— Kevin | nbacouchside.bsky.social (@NBACouchside) August 22, 2023
👀 btw this is hard to do … in general https://t.co/MJr9NuvIO0
— Ashley Nicole Moss (@AshNicoleMoss) August 22, 2023
Hadn’t considered Lonzo Ball reminding people how to act might be the most effective way for adults to learn how to act. https://t.co/P18z9cqTVF
— Andy Juett (@andyjuett) August 22, 2023
One of the greater internet clap backs I’ve ever seen. That left knee is seeing some red https://t.co/xJhkqZ6wMt
— Brian Knights (@BrianKnights3) August 22, 2023
Love it. Shame that this was necessary but Lonzo has such an inspiring attitude about this all. Rooting for him to return stronger. https://t.co/LcKdKOsxJZ
— Kris Pursiainen (@krispursiainen) August 22, 2023
Lonzo vs Stephen A Smith: https://t.co/zbzovUIAwN pic.twitter.com/X2FPynXpol
— Salim (🏀 is 🧬) (@Salim_BGhoops) August 22, 2023
Just hearing Lonzo say "I'm coming back" got me so fired up. Who knows if it'll happen but man he got me hyped. https://t.co/mJ6i0Cit22
— Brendan Sugrue (@BrendanSugrue) August 22, 2023
This is fantastic https://t.co/0gsStENAQG
— Taylor Doll (@TayDoll1010xl) August 22, 2023