We're starting with Ramona's opus on the Lakers and LeBron
, which featured a bottle of Opus 10, that
Luca and the Lakers brass enjoyed at dinner. LeBron
didn't even have a sip. A dinner that centered
on a future. That seemed independent of LeBron James
as the party exited out the front door, Luca's
team and the Lakers team, the franchise, not
the full team, just, you know, JJ
. The franchise unofficially made that message public. It
is ready to usher in the Lukadonchik era in Los
Angeles, even if that means sunsetting the LeBron James
one. Brew your reaction to this quote in the
article overall. Well, this quote in the article
. Uh, yeah, as it should be,
OK. I, anyone who doesn't think they should
be prioritizing building around 26 year old Luca over 40-year-old
LeBron. I either suspended from reality or wants to
create drama. I mean, seriously, like Rich
Paul in his statement that started a lot of this
said we understand it that you're building around Luca.
LeBron from the. He interacted with Luca on the
podcast to the way he deferred to Luca during the
season shows that he gets it. I understand and
so I don't know why, like, yes,
they're building around Luca. And LeBron is now the
2nd guy on the team or in the franchise,
and LeBron has accepted that, I think, yeah
, I mean the way by, by his actions
on the court, he has, by his words
he has. That's the part I agree like I'll
let you finish. It's just anonymous quote saying he
has on the to Rich Paul about it and I
look, didn't change the way he played. LeBron
did like that's to me like Wendy, who's one
of the authors of this, always says actions over
words. LeBron's actions once they got Luca, was
it, I, I will be malleable do that
and you and certainly in the short term I'll be
malleable and you do be do Luca stuff it's gonna
make Luca or Brew come on the show one day
and be like Lucaanic ball hawk like but but he's
a. Great one. But here, here's what
I'll say because you're gonna say the article said he
was frustrated, right? I, in the moment
, no matter how much you may like Luca,
no matter how much you understand this is the right
thing to do, you're still a human being.
You're still a human being who has been the best
player in the league for decades, plus it's hard
in the moment still to deal with that when Dyane
Wade said. It's not my team, it's LeBron's
team willingly. That was hard for him to handle
like you still have to deal with the emotions,
but LeBron is a big boy. He can handle
it and just like Wade moved past it and they
went on to win championships, I think LeBron moves
past his, the, the dent to his ego
a little bit or whatever it is, and they
can play together. Look, the one thing that
to me LeBron could genuinely be upset about is they
not offering you a contract extension like, OK,
we got you under contract for next year, we'll
give you a player option for the year, you
know, you could, you could say, OK
, that hurt a little bit, they didn't want
to, but I'll be honest, if I'm the
Lakers. I want LeBron on one year deals going
forward. At 40 years, LeBron could fall.
I don't think he will, but he could fall
off in February and just not be the same player
anymore and then why would you have to want to
lock him up next year for 52. So I
just think and Dave McMenamin reported during summer league that
he had talked not from sources from talking to Rich
Paul like I know you have and I have,
uh, that they didn't ask for the player they
didn't ask for an extension and so the here this
article was puzzling to me and not just because the
most noteworthy piece, at least the piece that seemed
to be real news got then edited post publication.
So the, the, the initial, the,
the, the most like, oh wow, the
Lakers were really sending LeBron a message. They didn't
inform him the team was being sold, but they
informed Luca. They then edited it and it's not
like they did it surreptitiously. They, they,
they wrote in the article that they had fixed it
, that, um, turns out LeBron was notified
he just didn't post a public acknowledgement of it.
But the beginning of the article, and again,
I wanna say this on the front end. I
adore Brian Windhorst and have as much respect for him
as anyone in the business, and I have one
of the only things that I, I said publicly
that I thought was a real, I didn't understand
it from LeBron was LeBron going at Wendy because I
just thought it was unjust like so and I don't
know Ramona, but everyone that I know knows Ramona
is she's great, the best. You worked with
her forever and she's super plugged in with the Lakers
. So I'm not, I, I, I'm
not attacking any of that. I'm just saying from
my head they presented. That dinner with Luca,
Luca's manager Polinkin JJ as. Almost scandalous that LeBron
wasn't there. And I thought. I would not
expect LeBron to be there for the dinner whose entire
purpose is we really want Luke Aacia to sign a
contract extension. What would he like to make sure
he signs the contract extension? The Lakers' number one
priority this offseason more than anything. Is that sometime
in August Luca re-ups and so it would be weird
to me for like to be like and LeBron's gonna
come too like I that that would and so I
didn't find that do you think I'm wrong here?
Like, no I, I thought it was a
good story. I thought it was a great storytelling
and good scene. I see it as like no
LeBron, but LeBron wasn't there. No, I
mean, but that was the, the context context
and that it was that that was likely. Just
an innocuous meeting, you know, it was to
center on Luca with no, no, it was
not scandalous about LeBron not being there. In fact
, if you invite LeBron, it could potentially send
the Luca the idea that he's not necessarily the number
one focus, but you can write it in a
way that kind of just like oh that LeBron was
there and so I felt, I felt like this
is what has been so confusing to me. I
don't know why the Lakers seem to be in a
rush to get out of the LeBron James business,
and I don't know why the Lakers in this article
they talk about wanting to maximize their flexibility for the
next summer and the summer after.