It’s been a wild couple of months for the Los Angeles Lakers. Not only have they struggled to find success on the court or even stay healthy but also, LeBron James’ recent attitude towards the organization has left a lot to be desired.
James spent the whole All-Star Break throwing passive-aggressive darts towards Lakers’ GM Rob Pelinka. He lauded Sam Presti and Koby Altman and even gave other teams the blueprint on how to get him for at least one season.
One would think that those words would scare most team owners and executives and force them to try and make amends with James. But Lakers ownerJeanie Buss isn’t like most team owners, and she won’t be the one to be bullied.
NBA Rumors: Lakers Owner Jeanie Buss Stood Up To LeBron James
According to NBA insider Bill Simmons, the heir of the Lakers empire wasn’t having any of James’ passive-aggressiveness and dart-throwing. She stood up to him and put an end to that rift right away:
“LeBron spent all of All-Star weekend putting stuff out there. Floating Sam Presti, floating the ‘I’m only going to play when Bronny James is coming to the league. I am playing with him. That’s how you get me to your team,'” Simmons said. “Floating some third party stuff that they then denied after about how they had tried to facilitate these Westbrook trades. They were unhappy and taking no accountability for any of it.”
“Jeanie Buss is a tough lady, man,” Simmons added. “She’s been in the league since the early eighties and I think at some point she stood up to those guys and was like, ‘No, stop. You don’t get to undermine all this. Stop. You’re here. You’re under contract next year. What are we doing?’ and I think they had a powwow, that’s what I heard. But I think she stood up for at least something. For them to unwind last week and pretend they weren’t chaos agents was really strange.”
LeBron has been used to getting his way wherever he’s gone but he had never played for such a storied franchise. Truth be told, and despite his great efforts and the ring he led them to, he’s not the first— nor won’t be the last legend to don the purple and gold, and no one is above the organization.
