Lonzo Ball found out he retired the same way everyone else did: on the internet.
A clip from the latest episode of the “Ball In The Family” podcast circulated Wednesday with Ball reflecting on his career in the past tense, and several accounts ran with it as a retirement announcement. Ball was not amused.
“I retired? News to me lol cuz I’m still waiting for a call… NBA season long,” he posted on X.
What he actually said
The quotes that set this off were reflective, not final.
“I feel like I gave everything I had to hoop, and I feel like everything I got in my life is because of hoop. I’m grateful to even make it to the league and be able to play for 9 years,” Ball said on the podcast.
He also spoke about the injuries that defined his career.
“I don’t think I ever got to my peak, and damn, that s*** sucks, but at the same time there’s people that don’t have meals at night to eat. That’s how I look at the world,” Ball said.
That is a man taking stock. It is not a man walking away.
The career that got away
Ball went second overall to the Lakers in the 2017 draft out of UCLA and was traded to New Orleans in 2019 as part of the Anthony Davis blockbuster. Two seasons in New Orleans led to a four-year, $85 million sign-and-trade with Chicago.
He played 70 total games across four seasons with the Bulls. Seventy. Multiple knee surgeries cost him nearly two full calendar years.
Chicago traded him to Cleveland in June 2025 for Isaac Okoro, and Ball appeared in 35 games for the Cavaliers while averaging 4.6 points in just over 20 minutes a night.
The market is quiet for a reason
Ball is a free agent and nobody has signed him, which is the actual news buried under the retirement noise. Teams looking at a point guard with his medical file and 4.6 points per game in his most recent season are hesitating for defensible reasons.
The counterargument is that he can still defend, still pass, and would cost a minimum. Plenty of contenders carry worse players at that price.
Somebody should call
The frustrating thing about Ball’s career is that he was never bad. He was hurt. His per-minute defensive impact held up even in Cleveland, and he shot the ball better late in his Bulls run than he ever did in Los Angeles.
He is saying openly that he wants to play. Training camps open in weeks and rosters are still being sorted.
Whether the call comes is a different question. But Lonzo Ball has not retired, and he would appreciate it if everyone stopped saying he has.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.