Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James might have ruffled some feathers during meetings involving players and owners the last few days.
According to ESPN's Stephen A. Smith, the Lakers talent might have “turned off” a few of his younger counterparts with his tone during the heated discussions to bring a resolution to their strike:
“I've heard, first of all, that he was speaking out of pocket and was talking to the players in a fashion that really turned off some of these young cats off,” said Smith on Friday's edition of First Take. “… Well guess what, the younger generation of players were not having what they were hearing from LeBron James because the fashion in which he spoke to them. When he stormed out of there, I was told it was in part because of that — and he sort of came off like ‘I got mine, I don't need this.'”
https://twitter.com/TheNBACentral/status/1299404732897939456
Led by the Milwaukee Bucks players, several other NBA teams decided to skip out of their playoff matchups, resulting in a league-wide boycott of playoff games to show solidarity with Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old African-American male that was shot seven times in the back by Kenosha police in Wisconsin.
The tense Wednesday night meeting was held after short planning from the NBPA. James was among the notable stars to walk out of it, followed by his Lakers teammates for the exception of Dwight Howard. The Lakers and Clippers — the two teams that walked out of the meeting — chose not to participate in the resumption of the season, only for James to later reconsider his stance and opt to follow the majority, who voted to continue.
LeBron was apparently upset at Wednesday's meeting because there were no concrete plans for social justice actions to go along with the boycott:
Sources: LeBron James walked out of Wednesday’s players meeting because he supported Bucks, supported boycott, but there was no plan. For James, actions and outcomes mattered most; otherwise why do this? He became comfortable to play once NBPA mapped out purpose and plans.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) August 28, 2020
There were then more meetings on Thursday. Smith has no exact details as to what was said, only that James was speaking out of pocket during a 15-minute solo after players and owners believed the meeting to be over. According to Smith, James said something on the lines of looking up for “the guys beneath me,” which may have rubbed others the wrong way.
No players confronted James, but they sure made their feelings known to those who were covering the meeting and all the stipulations stemming from it.
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