![]() “People always asked, ‘Are you going to ever cut your hair?’ And I’d be like, ‘Uh, not really.’ Because I had such a deep bond with it as far as my past and understanding what it really was, more than people really understood. “That was one of the most important moments,” Walker said on the podcast. During that summer before fifth grade, he wrote in the caption, around family members who had not been present as much, he was “sexually harassed, raped, abused.” The post included video footage of Walker cutting off his hair. ![]() So it didn’t really become a disguise once I came into the league, it became just who I was, what I represented as far as having your own swag and your own confidence and your own aura.”Ī post shared by Lonnie Walker IV three years ago, when Walker made an emotional Instagram post revealing what had happened to him. Then you go on to draft day where I had the floating hat. When people thought of Lonnie, thought of me with the hair. “But as I got older, it gave me confidence. “It was honestly a costume, a disguise,” Walker said. He wore it as a high school star in Reading, Pa., and at the University of Miami and in the NBA with the Spurs. The 24-year-old began to grow out his trademark hair in middle school. He came back to make crucial contributions in the Lakers’ Western Conference semifinals triumph over the Warriors. After signing with the Lakers last offseason, Walker averaged 14.7 points per game as part of the starting lineup until hurting his knee in late December and losing his spot in the team’s midseason makeover. 18 overall pick by the Spurs in the 2018 NBA Draft and spent four years in San Antonio. ![]() Walker - who signed a one-year, veteran minimum deal with the Nets on Monday - was the No. Understanding the past is the past and me knowing the bigger picture, which is knowing that I’m not the only one.” A haircut and a message “And once I hit a point where I was reaching a new chapter in my life, I decided to cut it. … Lonnie Walker IV is seen with his long hair as an NBA rookie in 2019. That’s what really helped me out, helped disguise a lot of things, helped me get by, even sometimes if I wasn’t the happiest person in the world. I used to always touch it, used to always play with it. I wanted to feel like I had some type of ownership in my life, or some type of something that I can call mine. ![]() “Growing up, I was sexually assaulted, and there was a point of time where I didn’t really know much about anything else besides just that,” Walker said this week on the “Voice of the Nets” podcast. Turns out, the cathartic reveal - and hearing from fellow survivors - helped him even more. It was cutting off the hair he had grown as a coping mechanism and making a statement he thought would help others out who had endured similar horrors. No, life had shown him what really tough was.įor one of the newest Nets, his most difficult challenge was finally deciding to open up about the sexual abuse he had survived as a child from the age of 7 to 10. It wasn’t losing his spot in the rotation or being let go in free agency. For Lonnie Walker IV, his toughest moment wasn’t getting hurt or getting dropped from the Lakers’ starting lineup. ![]()
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