The NBA playoffs are creeping closer but fans should already be anticipating next season, when Lonzo Ball and, more importantly, father LaVar will be gracing the Association. Lonzo, currently starring at UCLA, is a projected top pick in June's NBA draft and, given younger brothers LiAngelo and LaMelo also appear headed for the highest level, LaVar is understandably excited. So excited, he recently said this about reigning two-time MVP Stephen Curry: "Put Steph Curry on UCLA's team right now and put my boy on Golden State and watch what happens." LaVar followed that wonderful quote by last week insisting Lonzo would play for only his hometown LA Lakers, which isn't quite how the drafting system works. But he's hardly the first overzealous sports dad to loom large over his offspring's career...
1. Damir Dokic
Even by the standards of bad tennis dads, Damir took some beating. Few parents, after all, have been sentenced to jail for threatening to launch a grenade at the Australian ambassador to Serbia. The cause of Dokic's ire? A magazine printing claims made by daughter Jelena that Damir physically and mentally abused her. Funny feeling the magazine got that one right.
2. Jim Pierce
Jelena was far from alone. Two-time grand slam winner Mary Pierce successfully filed a restraining order against the father whose brutal training techniques eventually ended in abuse. Jim was an equal-opportunity offender, though, being involved in a fist fight with fans at the 1992 French Open and attacking Mary's cousin Oliver at Roland Garros a year later.
3. Floyd Mayweather Sr
There are more tennis dads but, for variety, here's the other Floyd Mayweather, who might have raised a terrible person but certainly did a decent job teaching his son how to fight. Problem is, Senior then used those skills to teach Junior's opponents, once training Oscar De La Hoya in a vain attempt to defeat the son from whom he'd long been estranged.
