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The internet had a lot of fun with a play from Los Angeles Lakers center JaVale McGee during the team's 126-93 preseason win over the Golden State Warriors that went viral. He appeared to feature him faking an injury in order to ‘cherry-pick' for an open dunk.
After appearing as if he was injured by leaning over out of bounds, fellow Lakers teammate Anthony Davis was able to quickly pass McGee the ball with no Warriors players near the play to defend.
They need to run this play for JaVale McGee in the regular season 😅 pic.twitter.com/v8haT2COd3
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) October 17, 2019
McGee denied faking injury when asked by reporters about the viral play after practice on Thursday. He mentioned that he actually hit his knee and was feeling pain, but when he realized that Davis had the basketball, he tried to forget about the pain and get in position for the dunk.
“I hit my knee, I really hit my knee. And it hurt. I went out of bounds and I saw Draymond guarding AD and I was like, forget the pain, I'm gonna go get these buckets,” McGee said, via Dave McMenamin of ESPN.
So I ran back in and got a dunk. But I really did bump my knee.”
Hate to break it to you all, but it wasn’t a trick play by JaVale last night. … pic.twitter.com/kpuhCYJFsZ
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) October 17, 2019
Many people seemed to question McGee's intentions because he is notorious for making strange plays that spread widely across the internet. Faking an injury to get an open dunk is apparently something that most wouldn't put past him to do that.
It seemed strange that McGee didn't appear to have complications running back on defense or throughout the remainder of the game. Whether he was actually injured or not, the play was representative of peak preseason basketball.
