LaVar Ball had some not-so-nice things to say about Lakers head coach Luke Walton last weekend, and ever since then, there have been a number of NBA head coaches who have shared their thoughts on what LaVar had to say. Rick Carlisle, Steve Kerr, and Stan Van Gundy are just a few of the coaches who were upset with LaVar for suggesting that Walton had lost control of his team.
But on Thursday night, Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich shared what might be the strongest take on the situation yet. San Antonio played the Lakers on Thursday, which offered reporters the perfect opportunity to ask Popovich for his opinion on what has transpired between Walton and LaVar in recent days, and Popovich was prepared for the moment. He responded with a calculated takedown of LaVar in which he referred to the Ball family patriarch as "just another fan in the peanut gallery" and said his opinion is "meaningless."
"Whenever anyone says anything about another individual or about the quality of another individual or what they’re doing, I think the first thing to look at is the substance and gravitas of the source that speaks," Popovich said. "Just stopping at that point would tell you that you don’t need to listen or go any further. It’s just another fan in the peanut gallery with an opinion, which is meaningless."
Popovich continued by talking about how Walton deserves way more respect than LaVar is giving him.
"Luke has been schooled in this game from the time he was a little kid," Popovich said. "And he doesn’t even know what he knows probably, just by osmosis, whether it was living at home [or] in school as a player. He’s had tremendous experience. As a player, he wasn’t the best athlete in the world. But those are the guys that sometimes understand the game better because it comes a little tougher to them. They understand what wins and loses, what they have to do to get an advantage and really understand the game, which he does. He inherently understands the game, and not everybody does. And then the icing on the cake, he gets to spend a few years up with Steve [Kerr] at Golden State with a great organization and a great group. So he’s way more than ready to handle this situation. But it’s a situation that’s gonna take time. It’s a process. And it certainly doesn’t need any outside chatter from people who don’t have a clue and haven’t gotten over themselves."
Or in other words: "STFU, LaVar, and let Luke do his job. OK?"
You can hear Popovich’s entire answer about LaVar in the clip above.
