LaVar Ball Reveals Reason for Leg Amputation

LaVar Ball has shared details of his recent surgery to remove his right foot and a portion of his leg.

The basketball dad, who is father to NBA players Lonzo, LiAngelo, and LaMelo Ball, opened up in an article for SLAM magazine published on Tuesday, March 18, revealing that the amputation was the result of a foot infection that spread through his blood and left him hospitalized “for over a month.”

“Due to not paying attention to my diabetes … I ended up having to get my foot amputated,” LaVar wrote. “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.’ Three surgeries. And then there was the blood transfusions. Not one, not two, not three, four different times.”

The co-founder of Big Baller Brand is keeping a positive attitude, however. “I look at my situation like this: I’ve talked to some of my people that’s my age that’s been calling me that have cancer,” he wrote. “And they say, ‘We thought we got it all, but we didn’t,’ and so the organs are getting tore up in the inside. Now these folks are dying. And these are my friends that are around my age, in the 50s and dying of cancer. Just for me to have my foot cut off, I got another one. I’m good to have my foot cut off as opposed to being dead.”

LaVar also credited his family, including wife Tina Ball, for helping him through the past few months. “Seeing what my boys are doing out there, they’re like, ‘Dad you’re the toughest dude I know.’ That made me keep going,” he wrote. “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.”

TMZ reported that LaVar had undergone surgery in February, and he took to social media earlier this month to show post-op footage. He added in his article a reminder for people to take care of themselves, writing, “From my experience the last couple months, I want to get in people’s heads the importance of taking care of your health—especially Black people, because sometimes we’re not trying to go to the hospital, we will try to sleep it off or say, Yeah, we’ll get to it later. And sometimes it’s a little more serious than what you think.”