Lakers Rumors: LeBron James ignoring calls from the sideline
By Ronald Agers
Recent Lakers rumors are that LeBron James has been ignoring calls from head coach, Luke Walton, from the sidelines.
Boy, I love doing Lakers rumors articles. I just sit back and listen to analysts, fans on social media and the sports writers make their opinions and it’s almost like a NBA reality show. Then after everyone has said their peace, I make my take and keep it moving to the next article until the next batch of Lakers rumors hit..
Which probably will be the next week.
The Los Angeles Lakers are in the middle of a two game losing streak losing in the last-minute to the Orlando Magic on Sunday…
Then following that up with the Nuggets taking the Lakers lunch money and telling them to sell their new jerseys in front of the arena in the Denver cold beating them 117-85…
Most teams in the NBA would be covering injuries to their important players and the big stories would center around them getting back in action.
This is the Los Angeles Lakers with LeBron James on the roster. It never works out that way. Where he goes, drama seems to always have a U-Haul worth of baggage set up in the parking lot of any franchise he plays for. This always lights the match for hot Lakers rumors for everyone to react to.
Boy this one is good!
Does anyone remember this phrase right here…
You probably don't wanna be around Bron when his patience runs out...
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) October 30, 2018
(via @NBATV) pic.twitter.com/X2cbtd2HQn
I guess that patience lasted about reportedly 20 games?
According to ESPN’s Senior Writer, Brian Windhorst, it seems that anonymous NBA scouts have observed LeBron James barely acknowledging Luke Walton for the play call while running the point and ignoring the call and doing his own thing at other times on offense.
"The scouts also have noticed that when James is running the point, he rarely looks toward the bench to receive playcalls from coach Luke Walton. Even when he has seen them, the scouts say, he ignores them and runs the play he prefers. Walton has adjusted, and now when James is running the show, Walton will typically just let him call the game. This probably shouldn’t be considered a slight — it’s just James being James."
Now, to be clear here, Windhorst has been covering LeBron James since high school so he is going to be the inside track to any real story that carries weight like this one does. Think Ahmad Rashad’s relationship with Michael Jordan in the 90’s. Everyone in the industry knew that you could count on one hand the amount of people in the media Jordan actually trusted. Rashad is to this day on that list. Windhorst has that much juice with LeBron in this scenario.
I’m not too sure that Lakers Head of basketball operations, Magic Johnson agrees with Windhorst’s view of how the Lakers are handling the situation. I’m being politically correct here…
But what about the other half? To be clear here, Magic Johnson is in a better space than he was when LeBron discussed losing patience at 2-5 as opposed to this story showing evidence of NBA scouts.
But let’s take a look back and the chain of events that led up to Windhorst’s article…