As the calendar turned from 2024 to 2025 and his sons dominated the headlines—Chicago Bulls guard Lonzo for his long-awaited return, Charlotte Hornets guard LaMelo for his stellar play, and musician LiAngelo for his burgeoning rap career—their father was conspicuously absent.
It turned out that LaVar Ball—the ex-Washington State forward whose larger-than-life personality made him a household name in the late 2010s—was battling a serious health scare. In February, reports emerged he'd had a foot amputated, and he detailed his harrowing ordeal in a first-person essay for Slam on Tuesday.
"I had an infection on my foot that started spreading through my blood due to not paying attention to my diabetes. I ended up having to get my leg amputated. First, they cut off a couple of toes. Then they cut off my foot. Then they said, 'We gotta go almost knee-high for another surgery,'" Ball wrote. "Three surgeries. And then there were also the blood transfusions. Not one, not two, not three, four different times."
Ball wrote that the blood transfusions were particularly difficult for him, but his sons' success encouraged him to see his ordeal through.
He described FaceTiming with LiAngelo as "Tweaker" rocketed into the Billboard top 30, urged people to take care of their health, and extolled the importance of family.
"All those surgeries and blood transfusions, it made me question whether it was worth going through it sometimes," Ball wrote. "But then seeing what my boys are doing out there, they’re like, 'Dad, you're the toughest dude I know.' That made me keep going. Even though I’m a bad man—I don’t need much—it was good to have that backing from my boys. One of the things that makes me go is when they are all together. When they are all together, I feel strong."
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as LaVar Ball Details Frightening Health Scare That Led to Leg Amputation.
