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Attention LaMelo Ball: only losers boast about avoiding diaper duty

29 0
24.10.2026

Nobody can accuse the basketball star LaMelo Ball of being bad at his job. That said, the Minnesota Timberwolves point guard doesn’t seem to be a huge fan of dribbling.

Ball has a nine-month-old son, LaOne, with his partner Ana Montana (real name: Analicia Chaves) and is apparently uninterested in dealing with all the body fluids that come with a baby.

“You’re a dad now,” the sportscaster Ernie Johnson Jr said to Ball during an ESPN interview on Wednesday. “Are you a diaper changer?”

“Nah, my girl do all that,” Ball replied. “We got a good gameplan going on. So I know what I gotta do, bring to the table, she know what she gotta do, bring to the table.”

Johnson, to his credit, seemed disappointed by this answer. “Oh man, you don’t know what you’re missing, I’m telling you that.”

“I did it before, you feel me? I’ve definitely did it before, [but] it’s just not my job,” Ball clarified. “You know what I’m saying? It’s not my job.”

Well, actually, excuse me while I mumsplain here, but it very much is your job. A baby doesn’t care that you signed a five-year contract extension worth up to $260m in 2023. Parenting is a 24/7 commitment no matter how much money you make.

Ball and Montana (and, presumably, a team of hired help) are obviously free to share domestic duties however suits them. Nobody expects a professional athlete to be as hands-on as a parent with a more flexible schedule.

But going on TV and boasting about how you don’t change diapers? That’s an extremely outdated look. A 1982 study based on fathers in Britain found 43% of fathers had never changed a nappy (as diapers are called in the UK). By 2000, that figure had........

© The Guardian