The Los Angeles Lakers have been the most disappointing team in the NBA this year. After coming into the season with championship aspirations, they have stumbled at every turn and now face the very real prospect of not even making the playoffs.
As a result of all the losing, infighting between the front office and team star LeBron James erupted over the past few weeks. It got so bad, in fact, that James’ agent Rich Paul had to come out and address it.
James, as he has many times throughout his career, has started taking a very antagonistic stance relative to the team.
By the sound of it, team owner Jeanie Buss is over James’ antics and made sure to let him and his team know this much over the past week.
Simmons on the last week in Laker Land pic.twitter.com/KfFXjOPaOR
— Harrison Faigen (@hmfaigen) March 1, 2022
“LeBron spent all of All-Star weekend putting stuff out there,” it was recounted on the Bill Simmons Show. “Floating Sam Presti, floating the ‘I’m only going to play when Bronny James is coming to the league. I am playing with him That’s how you get me to your team.’
“Floating some third party stuff that they then denied after about how they had tried to facilitate these Westbrook trades. They were unhappy and taking no accountability for any of it.”
Eventually, Buss got tired of it.
“Jeanie Buss is a tough lady, man,” Simmons continued. “… She’s been in the league since the early eighties and I think at some point she stood up to those guys and was like, ‘No, stop. You don’t get to undermine all this. Stop. You’re here. You’re under contract next year. What are we doing?’ and I think they had a powwow, that’s what I heard.
“But I think she stood up for at least something. For them to unwind last week and pretend they weren’t chaos agents was really strange.”
The Lakers are down bad right now, and there is no clear solution to solving the problem.
James has obviously expressed some openness to returning to the Cleveland Cavaliers, but the interest doesn’t appear to be mutual.
In fact, an Anthony Davis to the Chicago Bulls trade seems likelier at this juncture than one that sees James sent somewhere.
People have some strong reactions to Bronny’s girl.https://t.co/btEydLtqTt
— Game 7 (@game7__) March 1, 2022
By any objective measure, the Lakers are staring down a lot of bad options and virtually no good ones.
How will they escape this mess?
Time will tell.
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Charles Kruger has been credentialed to cover two Super Bowls, four NBA Finals, and one World Series. A 20-year veteran in the sports world, he has sources spanning the NBA, MLB, NFL, UFC and NASCAR. Currently residing in Los Angeles, Calif., he is Game 7’s go-to source for rumors surrounding the Lakers, Clippers and Dodgers.
