Spurs' Lonnie Walker IV says new haircut freeing as he works through childhood sexual abuse

Table Of Content

• Photos: Lakers surge late to defeat Warriors in Game 4
• Nets' Cam Thomas not voted a finalist for MIP award
• Orange Lutheran receives No. 1 seed for Southern Section Division 1 softball playoffs
• Starting 5: Haliburton sinks game-winner
• Spurs' Lonnie Walker IV shares how his new haircut freed him of his past as he opens up about childhood abuse
• Lonnie Walker IV Cuts His Hair and Reveals Childhood Sexual Abuse: 'My Hair Was a Mask'

"Life will always be hard. Gotta play with the cards your [sic] dealt with and try and make a winning hand." Walker further explained that he had been struggling with "history popping up" in recent months but managed to use quarantine as an opportunity to reset and better himself mentally and emotionally. Walker said in Thursday’s post on Instagram that the current coronavirus pandemic has taken a toll on him, mentally. The NBA suspended the season back in March, but Walker has managed to stay busy. In the wake of local protests against police brutality in San Antonio, Walker helped to clean up businesses in the central part of the city that were damaged.

Photos: Lakers surge late to defeat Warriors in Game 4

Guard DeMar DeRozan has also joined the conversation on mental health, describing his experience with depression, as well as several other NBA players throughout recent years. After being named to the all-freshman team in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), he was selected in the first round of the 2018 NBA draft by the San Antonio Spurs with the 18th overall pick. He played four seasons with the Spurs before signing with the Los Angeles Lakers.

Rumor: Lonnie Walker may have cut his signature hair - Pounding The Rock

Rumor: Lonnie Walker may have cut his signature hair.

Posted: Wed, 03 Oct 2018 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Nets' Cam Thomas not voted a finalist for MIP award

Lonnie Walker IV scores 15 fourth-quarter points to help the Lakers defeat Golden State in Game 4 and move within one win of conference finals. All of BreakingT’s shirts are super soft, and last nearly forever. If you’re between sizes, go with the larger of the two. In case you don’t know, a portion of the profits come to me, which is the kind of thing that Mrs. Wilco uses to rationalize me spending so much time working on PtR. "Life will always be hard. Gotta play with the cards you're dealt with and try and make a winning hand. And if you lose. It's never a loss. It's a lesson."

Orange Lutheran receives No. 1 seed for Southern Section Division 1 softball playoffs

Walker was born December 14, 1998, in Reading, Pennsylvania. He attended Reading Senior High School in Reading.[1] Walker made his varsity basketball debut as a freshman and played 27 games averaging eight points per game, and later as a sophomore he averaged 16.9 points per game in a short season due to injury. In 29 games, as a junior, he averaged 17.1 points per game. The clip also featured footage of Walker describing the evolution of his hair, from his middle school mohawk and beyond.

He played 25 minutes in Game 3 because coach Darvin Ham was looking for some scoring, and Walker responded with a dozen points, but he was still far out of the rotation. It was a place he had been since the middle of the season, when he missed about a month because of a knee injury and then lost his spot with the emergence of Austin Reaves and the acquisitions of Rui Hachimura and D’Angelo Russell. The 15 points by Walker in the quarter were more than the rest of the Lakers combined, only two fewer than the entire Warriors scored, and summoned the most emotional Lakers postgame celebration of the playoffs. San Antonio Spurs’ Lonnie Walker IV cut off his signature long locks on Thursday, revealing that his hair had been a “mask” to help him cope with the sexual abuse he suffered as a young child.

Walker talks about his hair journey starting in seventh grade with a Mohawk, then dying the Mohawk red, then cutting it into a flattop and beyond. During his time with the Spurs, Walker’s hair has grown longer and longer, eventually creating a tall loc-like style. While the wing out of the University of Miami struggled to find minutes with the San Antonio Spurs as a rookie and second-year player, his signature “pineapple” hairdo let everyone in the building know when he was on the court. Walker then noted that the isolation that’s come with the coronavirus pandemic has given him the time and space to really to revisit his history in his mind and consider his present. "I have shed my skin mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually," he added.

In that game, Walker became the youngest player (20) in Spurs history to rack up at least 25 points off the bench. Walker, 21, revealed on Instagram on Thursday that he started to grow out his hair when he was in middle school after being sexually abused as a child. “Going into eighth grade, I dyed the mohawk (red). Ninth grade, I cut the back off and turned it into a flat top.

My hair was a mask of me hiding the insecurities that I felt the world wasn’t ready for. I have shed my skin mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. Walker, in an Instagram post Thursday night, revealed that he had his hair cut symbolically so the emotional wounds of his childhood can begin to heal. Starting in fifth grade, Walker said, he began growing his hair out as a way to cope with his being sexually abused by family members. I forgave everyone -- even the people that don't deserve it. Time doesn't wait on anyone, so why should I waste my time on it?

Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. Walker, who averaged 5.6 points and 2.2 rebounds for the Spurs this season before the NBA was shut down in March, also detailed the mental toll the coronavirus pandemic has had on him. Spurs guard Lonnie Walker IV didn’t just cut off his signature hair this week, he opened up about the personal reason why. “The real truth as to why I started doing this early 5th grade, it was a cloaking device for me,” Walker states in the accompanying Instagram post.

During the free agency period last summer, Lonnie Walker IV signed a one-year deal with the Brooklyn Nets. Now, he’s set to be an unrestricted free agent following a solid season in Brooklyn. The Warriors haven’t shown a consistent ability to stop Davis, who had 23 points and 15 rebounds Monday night. They haven’t been able to tire out James, who scored 27 points and directed every bit of fourth-quarter traffic. His teammates will tell you that, in terms of lost playing time, no Laker has had a more difficult time than Walker. They will also tell you that no Laker has stayed more positive and energetic and industrious in the wake of such hopelessness.

In 53 games this season, he is averaging 5.6 points and 2.2 rebounds a night while shooting 40.8 percent from three-point range. He referred to himself at that time as “a gullible curious kid” who didn’t know about “the real world.” But he knew that he longed for control within his own world. "Me cutting my hair was more than a cut," Walker wrote. "My hair was a mask of me hiding the insecurities that I felt the world wasn't ready for. But now better then ever. Out with old. In with the new."

Lonnie Walker’s new hairdo is more clean shaven and features a cross on the side. After a season in which he’s shown flashes of being ready for a more prominent role with the Spurs’ incoming youth movement, he should get the chance to make sure he’s known for a lot more than his former hairdo. Walker also said because of the coronavirus, he wasn’t at his best and began to look at himself in the mirror behind closed doors, ultimately finding peace in the process. On Thursday night, Walker shared a video on Instagram revealing the moment a hand guided electric clippers through the top of his do. Those in the room could be heard cheering and shouting as he began his transformation.

“This is something that Lonnie has been dealing with for some time,” Langberg wrote. It’s pretty rare for Spurs fans to get such a deep look inside the personal lives of players, and this really touches the soul. It was a relatively known fact that he had an impoverished childhood in Reading, PA, but this takes it to a whole different level, and you can’t help but admire Lonnie even more for coming out on top.

Now 25 years old, Walker should have several suitors on the free agent market. The situation in Brooklyn is still roughly the same as he described last summer, but it’s unclear whether or not he would want to return. “One thing about when you play Golden State, you don’t have an opportunity to relax, you just don’t,” said James. Call it magic, call it karma, just don’t call him anonymous, not anymore, Walker riding a blazing shooting streak out of the shadows and into the hot lights of Lakers legend.