“Big ball is back, baby!”
That’s how an enthusiastic LaVar Ball re-introduced himself to the world after receiving his new prosthetic leg.
The famous basketball dad was seen on video testing out his new leg in video obtained by TMZ Sports, which shows him walking out of the Hanger Clinic in Southern California.
“I’m walking now, baby,” Ball says in the video. “I tell you — I didn’t think I was gonna walk this fast, but I see I am now.”
The 57-year-old father of NBA stars LaMelo Ball and Lonzo Ball (as well as rising rapper LiAngelo Ball) underwent a leg amputation earlier this year due to an infection.
In an essay he penned for SLAM magazine, Ball shared that an infection initially landed him in the hospital for over a month before things got seriously complicated beyond the infection and even the amputation.
“I had an infection on my foot that started spreading through my blood due to not paying attention to my diabetes,” Ball wrote. “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.’ Three surgeries. And then there was also the blood transfusions. Not one, not two, not three, four different times.”
Related: LaVar Ball Reveals the Medical Issue Behind His Leg Amputation
The ordeal, at one point, proved too much for him to handle, to the point LaVar said it had him “questioning whether it was worth going through it.”
“It made me think, ‘Man, just kill me and let me go about my business,'” he recalled. “It made me think that maybe it’s time for me to shut it down.”
Thankfully, LaVar says his boys pushed him to fight.
And fight he did.
