It’s not just NBA fans who are buzzing after Lakers star LeBron James attended the Cavaliers’ Game 4 playoff loss to the Celtics on Monday night in Cleveland.
ESPN’s Brian Windhorst said NBA executives were blowing up his phone after James showed up courtside, sending him his own famous double-index-finger meme from two years ago when he entertainingly wondered why the Jazz traded Royce O’Neale, foreshadowing the Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell trades that followed.
“My phone, I started getting people in the NBA, multiple general managers, sending my own meme back to me, saying, ‘What is going on in Cleveland?'” Windhorst said on ESPN’s “Get Up” on Tuesday morning. “Because they’re like, ‘What is he doing?'”
That is the question Windhorst attempted to answer.
He revealed that James and his wife, Savannah, were in town for Mother’s Day, and his agent Rich Paul attended the game because he has clients on the Cavaliers in Darius Garland and Tristan Thompson.
The Lakers knew ahead of time that James, who received a loud ovation from his hometown fans, was going to the game and were not surprised, according to Windhorst.
The moment reminded Windhorst of 10 years ago when James, then in his fourth season with the Heat after seven seasons with the Cavs, flew from Chicago to Cleveland to attend former teammate Zydrunas Ilgauskas’ number retirement ceremony.
That summer, James returned to the Cavaliers in free agency and a year later led them to their first NBA championship.
With the 39-year-old James able to opt out of his Lakers contract, is the kid from Akron teasing a third stint in Cleveland?
“This little maneuver is to just put a little bit of doubt — I think it’s mostly a bit of a thing for the Lakers, just to remind the Lakers, ‘By the way, just so you know, I’m still out here,” Windhorst said.
Windhorst did remind viewers that James wasn’t happy about the Lakers not doing anything at the trade deadline, and Los Angeles has three first-round picks it can trade ahead of the 2024 NBA Draft.
While James was in Cleveland, his son Bronny was in Chicago at the NBA combine trying to prove his worth in that upcoming draft.
Bronny had the second-best performance on the 3-point shooting drill at the combine, according to ESPN. He had the sixth-best vertical leap at 40.5 inches after measuring at 6-foot-1 ½ and 210 pounds.
Windhorst mentioned how Paul has said LeBron and Bronny don’t have to play together, though LeBron has stated multiple times previously how he’d like to play a year with his son.
James isn’t that interested in the Lakers’ coaching search after they fired Darvin Ham, Windhorst said, and the Lakers will give him whatever contract he wants, so his presence in Cleveland wasn’t about those things.
But he has been non-committal on his future since the Lakers lost in the first round to the Nuggets, and he clearly wanted to get people talking, even if his intentions aren’t totally clear.
“Certainly LeBron knew he was gonna create a stir, and it did,” Windhorst said, “on my phone and elsewhere in the league [Monday] night.”
