LeBron James‘ play on the court over the years has been nothing short of legendary, and the same can be said about his pre-game routines. James has had unique handshakes with his teammates for years, and there have been so many that fans have been left wondering how he even remembers them all. Well, James answered that question on his Mind the Game podcast.
“I have no idea,” James said. “Some of the handshakes are like I kind of try to learn my teammates over the course of time. Like early on, I’ll kind of [see] what they’re into, what they like, things of that nature. So right now, like my teammate Dalton Knecht, we have a handshake where we kind of dab up, and then at the end, we kind of throw a bow and arrow, and I kind of got that because of how well he shoots the ball.
“So it was like last year when he was a rookie, I think one game he had like 30 something in one of our games, and I was just like he f***ing flamethrower,” James added.
You can check out James’ handshake with Dalton Knecht and some of his other teammates below.
LeBron and his handshake game 🤝 pic.twitter.com/jmiMwjjPTK
— NBA Philippines (@NBA_Philippines) February 4, 2026
There’s that bow and arrow. With Drew Timme, it was a mustache, in reference to his handlebar mustache. That does make it easier to remember.
“Some of them is just off the top of the head,” James said. “… I’ve been doing it for so long. I don’t even know, man. Me and my best friends, we’ve been together for what? Since we were eight years old. We’ve had handshakes since we were young. And I got teammates that I was like teammates in like 2008 that got hand… It’s just weird that I can remember a lot of these.”
Co-host Steve Nash asked James if he really remembers handshakes from 2008, and he claimed he does. The 41-year-old hilariously stated that it is very time-consuming and that he probably needs to stop.
James is only going to play for so much longer, if he chooses to carry on, so there’s no harm in keeping up the tradition. A few more handshakes won’t hurt.
It should be noted, though, that it’s not just teammates with whom James has these unique handshakes. He has one with the Los Angeles Lakers‘ photographer, too.
Even the Lakers’ photographer share a unique handshake with LeBron 🤝pic.twitter.com/QoLLdsnCGN
— NBA Memes (@NBAMemes) April 26, 2023
This is also a sign of how James treats people in general. He has no obligation to engage with this individual, but still went out of his way to even have a unique handshake with her. James is far from perfect, but he is still a class act. He will be missed if he leaves the Lakers in free agency this summer.
