LeBron James made the headlines for all the wrong reasons after the Los Angeles Lakers‘ 125-108 loss to the Phoenix Suns at Crypto.com Arena on Monday. James looked disengaged for long stretches against the Suns and ended up having his worst game of the season. There has been a lot of chatter about why that may be the case, and his former teammate Deron Williams shared his theory on the To The Baha podcast.
“I saw some clips of them where it looked like he don’t really f*** with Luka [Doncic],” Williams said. “Not shaking hands. I’ve seen like seven clips. He didn’t help him up when he fell. Little s*** like that.”
One of the moments Williams was referring to was when Kris Dunn shoved Luka Doncic during a game between the Lakers and the Los Angeles Clippers. Not only did James not help Doncic up off the floor despite being right next to him, but he also had no reaction to the push.
Doncic and Dunn eventually got face-to-face, and it was Jaxson Hayes who finally came to the former’s defense. The act was appreciated by the Slovenian, who made it clear he would pay Hayes’ fine for pushing Dunn.
We shouldn’t be reading too much into James’ inaction that night, but these little things are starting to pile up. Podcast co-host Raymond Felton brought up that the 40-year-old also didn’t help Deandre Ayton up when he fell against the Suns. Williams, who played alongside James on the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2017, says all of this is out of character.
“That’s not LeBron,” Williams stated. “… He’s not happy.”
James, who had just 10 points (3-10 FG) and three assists against the Suns, also ignored head coach JJ Redick when he was repeatedly calling out his name in the third quarter. He was busy chirping with the Suns bench, and Lakers fans were very critical of him for disrespecting Redick in that manner.
Is all this down to James being unhappy about Doncic being the top dog on the Lakers? Well, only he knows for sure. James gave a diplomatic answer when asked whether the ball needs to be in his hands more instead of Doncic’s after the loss to the Suns.
“Yeah, you go with what’s been working. And obviously, you know, we have opportunity to change pitchers and switch pitchers.”
“But we go with what’s working. Obviously, you know, we didn’t play our brand of basketball the way we wanted to play. So it’s just one game. We don’t get too crazy.”
The loss to the Suns snapped the Lakers’ seven-game win streak and dropped them to 15-5. If they do go on a bit of a bad run from here on, then maybe we will see the ball in James’ hand a lot more than we have so far.
The Lakers are in action next against the Toronto Raptors at Scotiabank Arena on Thursday at 7:30 PM ET. The Raptors have won 10 of their last 12 games and will present a stern challenge. James will have to play a lot better than he did against the Suns if the Lakers are to avoid back-to-back defeats.
