LeBron James returned to the Los Angeles Lakers‘ lineup for Monday’s clash with the Phoenix Suns, but the game didn’t go according to plan. James struggled as the Suns blew out the Lakers 125-108, snapping their seven-game win streak and dropping them to 15-5 on the season.
While James’ play on the night was bad enough, he has also come under fire for ignoring Lakers head coach JJ Redick in the third quarter. Redick could be seen trying to get the 40-year-old’s attention on multiple occasions as Luka Doncic brought the ball up the court, but he paid no attention to his coach and kept talking to the Suns’ bench instead.
JJ tries multiple times to call a play for LeBron, but he’s chatting with the Suns bench. Takes a timeout.
byu/UnreasonablyWise inlakers
A frustrated Redick was forced to call a timeout. Surprisingly, James still didn’t walk over to the Lakers’ bench and kept talking to the Suns. Unsurprisingly, Lakers fans on Reddit were not happy with him for this.
“He seems totally checked out of this game. Sit his old a** on the bench,” one fan believes James should have been benched after this incident.
“LeBron was honestly upsetting today. Like bro, you are the only one who didn’t play yesterday…can you please lock in?” A fan expected more from James after he sat out of Sunday’s game against the New Orleans Pelicans.
“Probably top 5 entitled things within a game that LeBron has ever done. Complete disrespect towards the coaching staff and his team,” one fan called out James for disrespectful behavior.
“Please let this be Bron’s last season with us,” a fan wants James gone after this season.
“Annoying when they are down 20 points, and he’s still laughing with opponents. Disrespect to his teammates,” one fan wasn’t happy about James acting in this manner when the Lakers were down big.
It should be pointed out that James wasn’t exactly having a friendly conversation there, even if it might have seemed that way. He had a lot to say to the Suns’ bench and Dillon Brooks, and his Lakers teammates eventually had to come over and pull him away.
LeBron James’ teammates had to come up get him as he was continuing to to talk to Dillon Brooks and the Suns bench during that timeout. pic.twitter.com/VofPXNyYK5
— Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) December 2, 2025
Brooks appeared to have managed to get under James’ skin on the night. The polarizing Suns forward had trolled him and Luka Doncic during the game as well.
Brooks has ended up with egg on his face in the past when he poked the bear that is James, but that wasn’t the case here. He recorded 33 points (15-26 FG), two rebounds, two assists, and one steal to power the Suns to victory.
James, meanwhile, had just 10 points (3-10 FG) and three assists. This was easily the worst he had seen him play this season. James wasn’t really engaged for much of the night, and you wonder why that was the case. Plenty of theories are going to fly around about him not being happy with his role, but this could well end up being somewhat of a one-off.
James and the Lakers are in action next against the Toronto Raptors at Scotiabank Arena on Thursday at 7:30 PM ET. If the 21-time All-Star is this disengaged in that game as well, then there would be reason to sound the alarm.
