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After all, the man’s hairstyle made his traditional post-pick team-hat photo op look like he’d found a way to make his cap levitate. "Previous history popping up in my head and it sucked mentally. 'Demons'... Because of this virus, I began to truly look at myself in the mirror and see who I truly was, even behind closed doors. The 21-year-old began growing his hair in the 5th grade, which has now become known as “the pineapple” in the NBA. He shared the emotional moment of cutting his hair on IG Live. For 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 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.
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This week, the shooting guard parted ways with his signature look and took the opportunity to tell those fans the deeply emotional story of just what was behind it. Walker’s agent, George Langberg, released a statement Thursday night addressing his client’s post. Walker, 21, explained in an Instagram post Thursday that he decided to grow out his hair as an adolescent in an attempt to create what he called “a cloaking device” to shield the pain of suffering sexual abuse as a child.
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But in the text that accompanied the clip, he revealed that he started concentrating on his hair even earlier — and he revealed why. On Sunday, the NBA announced on social media via its “X” account all of the finalists for the regular-season awards with the playoffs beginning this past weekend. While it was not surprising, Nets guard Lonnie Walker IV was not among the finalists for the Sixth Man of the Year award. Before Game 3, he had played all of 28 minutes combined in eight playoff games.
Spurs' Lonnie Walker IV cuts hair, sheds pain from past
“During the summer of my 5th grade year I was around more family. Some [whose] names will be left alone I was around more. In a lengthy caption posted alongside the haircutting video, Walker revealed that he had been sexually harassed, raped, and abused as a child and that he had long been using his signature hairdo as a "cloaking device."
Spurs Guard Lonnie Walker IV speaks out about childhood sexual abuse - Sports Illustrated
Spurs Guard Lonnie Walker IV speaks out about childhood sexual abuse.
Posted: Fri, 12 Jun 2020 07:00:00 GMT [source]
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Spurs' Lonnie Walker Reveals He Was Raped as a Child - PEOPLE
Spurs' Lonnie Walker Reveals He Was Raped as a Child.
Posted: Fri, 12 Jun 2020 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Also, Walker’s play during the second half of the season did not match how he began the year, partly because of a hamstring injury that cost him 17 games. The second-year guard out of the University of Miami finished his post by wishing peace, love and happiness to his followers and saying he would be taking a break from Instagram for a while. "The real truth as to why I started doing this early 5th grade, it was a cloaking device for me," Walker wrote in the caption, accompanying a video of him describing his hairstyles over the years. "During the summer of my 5th grade year I was around more family. Some [whose] names will be left alone I was around more. “The real truth as to why I started doing this early 5th grade, it was a cloaking device for me,” Walker wrote in the caption, accompanying a video describing his hairstyles over the years.
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"This is something that Lonnie has been dealing with for some time now," Langberg wrote. The second-year guard ended his post by saying he would be stepping away from social media while wishing everyone "peace, love and happiness." Walker's agent, George Langberg, said in a statement posted on Twitter that this has been a long journey for his client. "The real truth as to why I started doing this early 5th grade, it was a cloaking device for me," Walker wrote in the caption.
Lonnie Walker IV
When San Antonio Spurs guard Lonnie Walker IV cut his signature hairstyle this week, he was parting with more than just several inches off the top. Walker said he was attempting to free himself of painful memories. Walker is not the only Spurs player to display personal vulnerability about mental health.
In an Instagram post, Walker explained the sexual abuse he experienced as a child
On the night he was selected 18th overall in the 2018 NBA Draft, he went viral on social media after his hat wouldn't fully fit on his head when he went up to shake commissioner Adam Silver's hand. He's become easily recognizable because of his hair over the years, but the decision to cut it off came because, as Walker writes in the caption, the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on him mentally. However, this was about more than just getting a summer cut before the San Antonio Spurs head to Orlando to finish out the rest of the season in July. Thursday evening, Walker revealed on his Instagram that he began to grow out his hair when he was in the fifth grade as a coping mechanism after being sexually abused as a child. The video accompanying the post shows Walker covering his face with his right hand as a chunk of hair is being shaved off by a barber's clippers. Then Walker's voice can be heard narrating his hair history with corresponding images, from a small mohawk in seventh grade, to dying the mohawk red in eighth grade, to cutting it into a flat top in ninth grade and so on.
Ninth and 10th grade, I would trim it, the sides, trim the top. In the 12th grade, I started taking these really hard advanced, chemistry [classes], AP, physics and everything. Whenever I had a hard test the next day, I always started to twist up my hair. Promising young Spurs guard Lonnie Walker IV surprised a lot of people when he cut off his signature pineapple haircut that he had been growing out since fifth grade. Now, he’s explaining why he grew out his hair in the first place — and subsequently cut it — and it’s a much more sobering story than his huge, perpetual smile would lead you to believe. More to the point, with the Nets finishing with a record, all of the finalists’ teams finished with at least 46 wins and were at worst in the play-in tournament.
He had been benched for the entirety of one of those games. “The real truth as to why I started doing this early 5th grade, it was a cloaking device for me,” Walked said in the post. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes.
“Previous history popping up in my head and it sucked mentally. ‘Demons’… Because of this virus, I began to truly look at myself in the mirror and see who I truly was, even behind closed doors. Long story short I have found peace and internal happiness through this journey, God willingly. 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?
My hair was a mask of me hiding the insecurity's that I felt the world wasn't ready for. "The real truth as to why I started doing this early 5th grade, it was a cloaking device for me," Walker wrote in the caption of his post. "During the summer of my 5th grade year I was around more family. Some that names will be left alone I was around more. I was sexually harassed, raped, abused, I even got accustomed to it because being at that age you don’t know what is what. In the video, as friends react to Walker's hair being cut off, the Spurs guard details his hair history from middle school through college.
The moment he got here, he instantly connected with the fans and community of San Antonio, and everyday it gets harder not to love him even more. It’s hard to imagine there wasn’t a single Spurs fan already rooting for him to succeed, but now it’s impossible not to. He has always felt like a Spur-for-life, and hopefully this is the beginning of an amazing new journey for him.
Since returning from the injury, Walker was not the same as he averaged just 7.7 points, 2.0 rebounds, and 1.1 assists per game while shooting 38.5% from the field 34.1% from behind the three-point line. The drop in his overall shooting efficiency led to a reduction in his role as well and from there, Walker found his spot within Brooklyn’s rotation to be unstable at best. "Long story short I have found peace and internal happiness through this journey, god willingly. I forgave everyone, even the people that don't deserve it. Why? Because it's dead weight. "As of recently I wasn’t at my best. Previous History popping up in my head and it sucked mentally “demons”..... because of this virus, I began to truly look at myself in the mirror and see who I truly was even behind closed doors.
Some [of their] names will be left alone I was around more. Walker played in 58 games last season, all of which as a reserve. As the Nets look to re-tool the roster, he would be a quality depth piece to keep on the roster. With that in mind, Brooklyn shouldn’t overpay for his services if there’s other teams that inflate his market value with interest and offers. Many sad descriptors accompanied Lonnie Walker IV onto the Crypto.com Arena court at the start of the fourth quarter Monday night, but by the time the game ended, the building was shaking with a new and different one. The Spurs have had celebrated draft picks, costly draft picks, and picks that puzzled at the time, but they’ve never drafted a player as follicularly audacious as Lonnie Walker IV.
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