LeBron James has spent the last two weeks stressing the need for the struggling Los Angeles Lakers to avoid distractions and focus on the team's real task at hand: making the playoffs for the first time since 2012-13. Luke Walton offered a similar sentiment on Wednesday, but he probably had a different justification in mind.
“I encourage a lot of our players not to pay attention to a lot of it,” Walton said of teammates' media sessions, per ESPN's Dave McMenamin. “Because a lot of it will get twisted and headlines will read something totally different than what was said. So it's no different than anything else we've been preaching all year from the get (go), and that's let's worry about our group. We're the ones that are going to make things happen or not, so we can't let outside distractions get in our way.”
James, of course, has long made a habit out of sending subliminal messages to teammates through media, whether via discussions with reporters or social media posts. He has taken that approach with the Lakers many times this season, and che ontinued doing so on Wednesday when he mentioned on several separate occasions that he “like[s] where we are.”
But James' words were indeed taken out of context following Los Angeles' disheartening loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on Monday. Asked by a reporter if the stress of fighting for playoff positioning under the microscope of incessant attention was becoming a distraction for his teammates, James replied that the Lakers aren't the team for someone affected by “distractions.”
The ensuing hysteria over his remarks centered on the assumption that James was referencing turmoil lingering from Los Angeles' failed trade talks for Anthony Davis, implicitly calling for the Lakers to move on from the team's stable of young players.
The 11th-place Lakers under Luke Walton are 29-31 on the season and are three games back of the San Antonio Spurs for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.
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