Lakers Trash Talk: Larry Nance, Jr. says he’s Ivica Zubac’s father

The back-and-forth between Larry Nance, Jr. and Los Angeles Lakers rookie center Ivica Zubac has been one of the funniest things about the team this year, but Nance may have just ended any return zings from Zubac with this mic drop.

Nance and Zubac have (semi-jokingly) talked about playing one-on-one as Nance recovers from injury, with both giving differing accounts to the media about how those games have gone. However, with Nance returning closer to full health, he told Mark Medina of the Orange County Register that Zubac was too scared to play him this week despite apparently asserting he had done so.

“Isn’t it always a child’s job to talk trash to their dad?” Nance told Medina. “I talk trash to my dad. He hasn’t beaten me. I haven’t beaten my dad. That’s how it goes.”

Let’s go to Nance after he dropped that line:

And now let’s see a visual approximation of what that burn looks like as a dunk:

I think according to the rules of trash talk, Zubac now has to dunk on Nance before he’s allowed to talk to him again.

In all seriousness, the Lakers need Nance to get healthy ASAP so he and Zubac can see if their off-court chemistry translates on the court now that it looks like the latter might be in the rotation.

Harrison Faigen is co-host of the Locked on Lakers podcast (subscribe here), and you can follow him on Twitter at @hmfaigen.