Amid all the uncertainty that Russell Westbrook faced this summer, some shocking information came out around the time he was finalizing his veteran deal with the Kings. It claimed that Westbrook thought LeBron James was ‘fake’ and thus lost respect for him during his stint with the Lakers.
The source of this information was a credentialed NBA writer, Yaron Weitzman, who wrote about it in his book, ‘A Hollywood Ending: The Dreams and Drama of the LeBron Lakers.’
Now, days after this information went viral among NBA fans, the writer has reported that the Lakers franchise tried to shut down the release of his book and seemingly threatened legal action against him if he did so.
“I started working on this book around January 2023,” said Weitzman. “Around that time, when you work on a project like this, you reach out to the principals. So I got in touch with Jeannie Buss and the Lakers. Jeannie and I actually engaged in a few messages. We even met a couple of times. They were off-the-record meetings. Normally, I wouldn’t be revealing that to you, except she was the one who put these meetings in public first.”
“To be clear, I didn’t accuse Jeanie or the Lakers of anything,” continued Weitzman. “All I do as a reporter is ask other people questions, do the reporting, and give Jeanie and the principals the chance to respond. I am far from the first person to bring up the fact that the Lakers under Jeanie Buss might not have spent as lavishly as other organizations.”
“The way it works when you work on a project like this is, when you’re done, you send the principals some fact-checking. Not positive stuff, just the stuff they might want to respond to,” he said. “I did that for the Lakers, and instead of getting on the phone with me, they decided to hire a famous defamation lawyer named Marty Singer to handle their dealings with me, and he eventually sent me a very strongly written letter. For example, they said that my reporting was, ‘Full of thinly-veiled misogynistic smears, revealing a chauvinism and negative bias that undermines the reliability of my sources.’
“Singer then punctuated the letter by adding that, I want to be incredibly clear with you. There are many times when individuals threaten to sue, with neither the reputation to stand up or scrutiny nor the resources to pursue a strong libel claim. Please have no doubt that neither of these issues applies here.’”
The source article of this story also gives an excerpt from the introduction of this book that seemingly shows the Lakers franchise as a result of the power struggle between Jerry Buss’ kids, to now being essentially controlled by LeBron James. A description that I believe may have been a bit offensive to Jeanie Buss, if anything, since she claimed the book has ‘misogynistic smears.’
I will acknowledge that I have not read the book, so I can’t comment on what else the franchise found controversial. But it will be interesting to see if the Lakers publicly scrutinize this book and whether the observations in this book come under some form of investigation or not. Because the basis of any legal claim here will be that the information has to be false.
If Westbrook’s team denies making these claims, then LeBron James can potentially have grounds to take legal action against the author. The Westbrook story was one of the many stories that Weitzman has apparently detailed in his book. Cannot say for certain if they have a case here or not.
