#FreeLavarBall
So, Saturday night, the Los Angeles Lakers circus officially started, at the helm of LeBron James. During the epic Chris Paul and Rajon Rondo (with Brandon Ingram) fight over the weekend, LeBron saw himself aiding his friend CP3 away from the scuffle.
After Bron not speaking up for his teammates and joined at the hip with his banana boat cohort, the Lakers have now become a messy situation. Following the events, LeBron didn’t even have a conversation with Rondo or Ingram about the fight, which saw a huge dent in the locker-room.
With younger players all following social media and people believing LeBron was more concerned about his friend, this caused questions among the team. Monday afternoon, before their overtime loss to the San Antonio Spurs, the team returned to practice like nothing happened (final straw). This immediately caused a rift behind-the-scenes with some players and management.
Coach Luke Walton held a team video review of the game, where they looked at missed assignments, as Ingram absorbed most of the unnecessary blame. Surprisingly, Lonzo Ball, was being praised for his effort plays in film study, which we’re assuming also came as shock to him. Kuzma took some blame, and that could be damage control of the situation at hand.
However, LeBron wasn’t blamed for anything in their study, including his lack of defense and leadership. Considering the chatter from around the league and social media over the weekend, it’s gotten so bad that Brandon Ingram isn’t on speaking terms with LeBorn, Zo or Kyle Kuzma.
Throughout initial weeks, both Zo and Kuz have been in the good graces of LeBron; with Ingram as the odd-man out (stay tuned for that mid-season trade for Anthony Davis). Right now, Rondo is staying away from drama; but it’s essentially him, Josh Hart and Ingram vs. LeBron and the rest.
We believe a trade for Ingram could happen in the coming weeks, especially if the team keeps under-performing from their predicted bottom-seeded real expectations in the west.
Rondo, has the entire team on his side; but some players are afraid of speaking out. So, with LeBron and Ingram not even on speaking terms, we’re curious what will happen once Brandon requests a trade. This fight essentially exposed everything wrong with this team, which is a historic basketball legend past his prime coming Hollywood and breaking up a young core team.