Yet Nance Sr. claims that his son is “much stronger” and on a faster track than he was.
“At this point in his career, he understands the game better than I did,” Nance Sr. said. “He has a better shot than I did at the beginning.”
Before the Lakers’ game against Phoenix on Monday, Nance Jr. got to see the setting of his father’s beginnings. He met up with a few of Senior’s old teammates and visited the team’s wall of record holders.
But Junior is used to people singing his dad’s praises.
“To everybody else that’s Larry Nance,” he said. “That’s just Dad to me.”
Dad would like to see his son carry his legacy by competing in the Slam Dunk contest, and Junior agrees that it would be “cool at some point.” Maybe by then Nance Jr. will have changed his agenda for the competition.
“He was going to put me in a wheelchair, roll me out under the basket and slam dunk on top of me,” Nance Sr. said. “How’s that? Isn’t that a great kid?”