The Lonzo Ball and De’Aaron Fox drama, explained

Lonzo Ball and De’Aaron Fox have brewed a bit of a rivalry. The two have always been compared as contemporaries because they play the same position and were in the same draft class, but they’ve also had multiple opportunities to play against each other between their time in college, the NBA Summer League, the NBA preseason, and now in the regular season.

That first regular-season matchup will take place in Sacramento Wednesday at 10:30 p.m. ET on ESPN and WatchESPN.

But the rivalry itself has gone to another level due to them not actually playing against each other. In last year’s NCAA tournament, Fox lit up Ball and UCLA to the tune of 39 points in a Sweet 16 victory. Since then, Ball has missed two potential matchups against Fox due to minor injuries.

That’s led to the conspiracy theory that Lonzo, along with other players, is “ducking” Fox because he’s scared to play him. It’s become a running joke on Twitter and elsewhere.

Ball isn’t actually faking injuries to avoid playing Fox (we think), but we won’t let that get in the way of a few good jokes.

Here’s how this tin-can theory got going.

The UCLA vs. Kentucky Sweet 16 matchup became a bigger deal than it usually is because of LaVar Ball talking up Lonzo, as he’s wont to do. This time, LaVar called his son a better player than Stephen Curry.

That’s a ridiculous notion, but it’s one that annoyed folks nonetheless. Among those people? De’Aaron Fox.

In an interview with Sports Illustrated in June, Fox admitted that he used LaVar Ball’s comments as extra motivation to dominate Lonzo in their matchup. He just wanted to shut him up, he said.

“In the last year, [LaVar] became relevant for some reason,” Fox told SI’s Andrew Sharp. “When I knew Lonzo in high school, I’d never seen his dad before. He went crazy this year. I guess when your son is a lottery pick, that gives you a lot of confidence.”

PHEW. Fox was not playing.

And the 39 he dropped on Lonzo Ball’s head shows us just how serious he was. Meanwhile, Ball only scored 10 points on 4-for-10 shooting.

Days before the 2017 NBA draft, in which Ball was taken No. 2 overall and Fox was drafted at No. 5, Fox’s father suggested his son had nothing to prove after getting the best of Ball in the college season.

“My son already ate his ass up twice,” Aaron Fox said about Lonzo, according to Bleacher Report’s Jonathan Abrams. “[LaVar] can say what he wants to say. I just tell him to go back and watch the film. That’s it.”

In their first matchup of the college season, Fox put up 20 points and nine assists to Ball’s 14 points, seven assists, and six rebounds. UCLA won that matchup, though, 97-92. In last year’s Sweet 16, Fox clearly outplayed Ball, as we noted above.

Aaron Fox said that’s all his son needs to do: Handle basketball on the court.

“All that yap, yap, yapping, I don’t even got to respond to that,” he said. “We played them twice. Twice his son got outplayed. I always tell [De’Aaron], let your game speak for it. You ain’t got to talk. You ain’t got to fuss.”

Fox and Ball were scheduled to play each other on July 10 during the NBA’s Las Vegas Summer League. Ball was off to a flying start and Fox had also shown flashes during the event.

However, Ball sat out the matchup as a precaution due to an ankle injury he sustained earlier in the week.

That didn’t stop the jokes from flying, but things really took off after Fox tweeted this out.

OH NO HE DIDN’T!

He definitely did. When asked if the tweet was in reference to Ball, Fox said he was trolling, though he almost went with the “I was hacked!” excuse beforehand. .

“Y’all ran with it faster than I would run a 40, so I did it,” Fox told reporters. “I know what y’all do. It made a story, didn’t it?”

Ball said sitting out due to injury had nothing to do with playing Fox. If it was up to him, he said, he’d have played. However, it was the coaching staff’s decision to rest him.

A week later, LaVar Ball hopped on Fox Sports Radio to talk about his son’s start in the summer league. Fox came up — and LaVar didn’t hold back.

“Duck De’Aaron Fox? Have you heard about De’Aaron Fox? Hell nah. You can’t hear about him unless he puts my boy’s name in his mouth. He been doing all this stuff and ain’t nobody been talking about him. So he and his dad gotta link themselves to us to be relevant. De’Aaron Fox had a whole season and the only thing they talk about is 39 points against Zo. You don’t put Zo in a sentence, nobody cares about him,” LaVar said during his appearance.

Fox didn’t say anything in response, but we’re sure he got the message.

Or at least that’s what the jokes tell us.

The Kings and Lakers were set to play each other during the NBA’s preseason on Oct. 8, but Ball was held out again with a minor ankle sprain sustained during a practice six days prior.

Two days before the game, Ball limped over to reporters and told them himself that he might sit.

LET THE JOKES FLY.

Again, the conspiracy theory doesn’t have much of a factual basis. Ball didn’t play in the Lakers’ previous preseason game six days before and sat out the final two Lakers preseason games thereafter with the same ankle problem.

But the pure coincidence of Lonzo having two separate minor injuries before games against Fox, along with LaVar’s comments before the preseason matchup, created a perfect storm of circumstances for laughs.

Ball is fully healthy and should play against Fox and the Kings on Wednesday. But if he doesn’t? You already know the jokes that’ll continue to fly, even if the truth is far less interesting.