A Hollywood Ending, page 28
He didn’t budge.
The first quarter came and went.
He never crossed halfcourt.
The second quarter reached its final minutes.
Westbrook rose from his seat and exited through a tunnel, never returning.
The scene became the talk of the night. Side-by-side images contrasting how LeBron and Westbrook had interacted at summer league the previous year—they’d entered the building together and sat next to each other—made the rounds on social media. The noninteraction was red meat for talking heads. It also sparked concerns within the team’s new coaching staff.
“We knew that we’d have to bring Westbrook off the bench eventually because things weren’t a good fit,” a Lakers coach said. “But seeing that play out that night it was like, ‘Oh, these motherfuckers aren’t even talking to each other.’ ”
The impetus appeared to be the recent rumors involving Kyrie Irving. LeBron’s former costar was entering the final season of his contract with the Nets, a $36.9 million player option, and wanted an extension. The Nets, however, were unwilling to hand over tens of millions of guaranteed dollars to a player who, since arriving in Brooklyn, had missed chunks of games for, among other things, a refusal to get a Covid vaccine and promoting an antisemitic film on social media. Recognizing he had no future in Brooklyn, Irving asked for a trade. The news had leaked in late June, with multiple outlets reporting that the Lakers were one of Irving’s preferred destinations and that LeBron wanted a reunion.
Negotiations between the Lakers and Nets went nowhere. Pelinka never showed any real interest in Irving. And even if he had, the Nets had no desire to take Westbrook back. Irving picked up his option and remained in Brooklyn,[*2] but by then the damage was done. Because of the NBA’s salary-matching rules, the only way for the Lakers to acquire Irving would have been by dealing Westbrook. Westbrook knew this, and he knew that LeBron did as well. Meaning that no matter what LeBron said in public, the reality was clear: He was pushing for the Lakers to ship Westbrook out.
The Lakers opened their season in mid-October with a 123–109 loss to the Warriors. Two nights later, in their home opener, Westbrook misfired on all 11 of his shots, and the Lakers fell to the Clippers, 103–97. Asked during his postgame press conference how he thought he played, Westbrook replied, “Solid. Played hard. That’s all you can ask for.” Three days later, on a Sunday afternoon, the Lakers were back on their home floor to take on the Blazers. This time their first win of the season was within their grasp.
With just 36 seconds remaining and clinging to a one-point lead, Westbrook brought the ball up the court. Instead of draining the clock, he dribbled directly into a 15-footer on the right wing. The shot ricocheted off the rim. Watching from the perimeter, both Davis and LeBron turned their palms toward the sky, putting their indignation on full display. The Lakers ended up losing 106–104, falling to 0–3.
After the game, one reporter asked LeBron about the team’s late-game “shot selection.” Another wanted to know, “basketball philosophy–wise,” how LeBron preferred to manage the clock late in games.
“I feel like this is an interview of trying to set me up to say something. I can tell that you guys are in the whole ‘Russell Westbrook category’ right now,” LeBron said. Later he added, “You guys can write about Russ and all the things you want to try to talk about Russ, but I’m not up here to do that. I won’t do it. I’ve said it over and over. That’s not who I am.”
Westbrook wasn’t buying it. To him, this was just the latest example of LeBron saying one thing but doing another. “People are saying, ‘Let Russ be Russ,’ ” he had told reporters the previous December. “I think nobody understands what that means. I think people just say it.” It was a clear shot at LeBron, and one Westbrook doubled down on after the season when asked about LeBron’s repeated use of the phrase.
“That wasn’t true,” Westbrook told reporters. “So let’s be honest.”
Westbrook knew LeBron’s reputation. He’d seen all the examples of LeBron seemingly misrepresenting himself. There was the time LeBron claimed that The Godfather was his favorite movie but then failed to recall a single line when asked during a press conference to name one. There was the time he carried The Autobiography of Malcolm X into a media session but stumbled when asked to name his biggest takeaway. There was the time during an interview when he claimed that, the night Kobe scored 81 points, he’d predicted beforehand that he’d go for 70, a clip so widely mocked that it became a popular meme. LeBron’s reputation for bending the truth was so widespread that he even got teased while appearing in would-be safe spaces.
“They say you be cappin’,”[*3] Jacksonville Jaguars cornerback Jalen Ramsey told him during a November 2022 episode of The Shop, a talk show produced by LeBron and Maverick Carter’s media company.
This, in Westbrook’s view, was who LeBron was. And he was done putting up with it.
Two days after losing to the Blazers, the Lakers were back at their facility for a practice. Pelinka informed the players a special guest would be coming through. He’d created a program called the Genius Series, where he’d bring in luminaries from various fields—Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Kendrick Lamar, Elon Musk—to address the team. For this day, he’d secured an A-lister: Will Smith, just six months removed from slapping Chris Rock during the 94th Academy Awards.
The team gathered in the film room to review the Blazers game. Ham was tough on the group, highlighting all sorts of mistakes that had led to the 0–3 start. When the session concluded, Pelinka came by. He’d already shown Smith the practice court—they shot free throws together—and Jeanie’s office. Now, he told the players, Smith was on his way to them.
When Pelinka and Ham left to fetch him, LeBron, seated in a middle row, stood up.
Y’all got this, he said.
He stormed out a back door.
Shit, man, Davis said.
He stood and followed LeBron out.
Stunned, the rest of the players sat there, looking at each other, unsure what to do.
“We’re like, ‘Yo, what the fuck is going on?’ ” one recalled.
Westbrook rose next.
So, we all leaving? he asked.
Nah, Russ, said Patrick Beverley, a brash veteran point guard the Lakers acquired over the summer. We gotta stay.
Westbrook didn’t understand. What do you mean? he asked.
Them two guys can do whatever the fuck they want, Beverley said. They won a championship.
As the two went back and forth, it became clear to the other players in the room what Westbrook was thinking: As a nine-time All-Star, and former MVP, and future Hall of Famer, why would there be a difference between him and them?
Pelinka came back in.
We ready? he asked
We ain’t ready, Beverley said. We need five minutes.
Pelinka left.
Minutes later, Ham reentered and sat silently at the front of the room as Westbrook and Beverley continued arguing. He then stood up and exited through the same door LeBron and Davis had used. Soon after, he returned with both stars. Next, Ham went to get Pelinka and Smith. When they all returned, Smith was greeted with smiles and daps.
Smith talked to the players about his new movie, Emancipation. He talked about overcoming adversity. He cracked some jokes at the team’s expense. Then he opened the floor for questions.
LeBron was first. He had a question, he said. Smith answered. Then LeBron had another question. And another after that and another after that and another after that. On and on he went, stretching what was supposed to be a thirty-minute session into nearly an hour.
“The same guy who was trying to leave is now quoting back movie lines and going through the guy’s whole life story,” one attendee recalled thinking. Seated in the third row, picking at a bowl of fruit, Westbrook watched in disbelief, shaking his head and rolling his eyes every time LeBron spoke.
I hate that fake shit, Westbrook said to a teammate afterward, as the Lakers gathered for a team photo. I just can’t do it.
The next afternoon, the Lakers posted the picture on social media. Standing among Lakers players, coaches, and Pelinka was Smith, holding up a custom jersey. There, standing a few feet to Smith’s right, was Westbrook, his face twisted into a scowl.
* * *
• • •
Even before taking the job, Ham knew that the only chance he had at orchestrating a turnaround was if he figured out a way to move Westbrook to the bench. But he had to make sure not to alienate Westbrook while doing so. He figured his best chance was to build a relationship first and then pitch the change. And he figured the best way to do that was through public flattery.
“Don’t get it messed up. Russell is one of the best players our league has ever seen,” Ham had said during his introductory press conference in July. “He still has a ton left in that tank.”
He then waited until the end of the preseason to make his move. Before the team’s final preseason game, Ham pulled Westbrook aside and told him that he was going to experiment with bringing him off the bench. Doing so, he said, was best for everyone, Westbrook included. It meant he’d have the ball in his hands and would no longer have to worry about fitting in.
“He totally looked me in my eye and said, ‘Yeah, Coach, whatever you need me to do,’ ” Ham later told reporters.
Westbrook entered the game midway through the first quarter. Five minutes in, he strained his left hamstring.
The following week, he blamed the injury on Ham’s decision.
“I’ve been doing the same thing for fourteen years straight. Honestly, I didn’t even know what to do pregame,” he said. “Being honest, I was trying to figure out how to stay warm and loose…The way I play the game, it’s fast-paced, quick, stop-and-go. And I just happened to, when I subbed in, I felt something.”
Ham slotted Westbrook back into the starting lineup for the season opener. The Lakers then lost their first four games of the season, allowing Ham to move Westbrook back to the bench. Two games later, at home against the Nuggets, Westbrook recorded 18 points, eight rebounds, and eight assists in his new role, helping lead the Lakers to a 121–110 win, their first of the year. He even received a standing ovation after checking back into the game late in the fourth quarter.
“Tonight, we needed to prove something to ourselves,” Ham told reporters afterward. “Not to the world. Not to the media. We had to prove it to ourselves, and I felt great about how we responded.”
The Lakers won their next game, too, a 120–117 victory in overtime over the Pelicans.
It looked like a turning point.
It was not.
The Lakers matched wins with losses over the next two months, and in late December they arrived in Miami with a 14–20 record, the third-worst record in the conference. It felt like déjà vu. Once again, Davis was watching games from the sideline due to a foot injury he sustained a few weeks earlier; once again, the Lakers were bad on both sides of the ball; once again, they were hovering around the bottom of the Western Conference standings.
And, once again, LeBron was losing patience.
That night, after another loss, a reporter asked LeBron about his mindset with his thirty-eighth birthday two days away.
“I think about that, I don’t want to finish my career playing at this level from a team aspect,” he said as part of his response. Later he added, “I’m a winner, and I want to win. And I want to win and give myself a chance to win and still compete for championships.”
The Lakers bounced back, winning five in a row, but that only seemed to trigger LeBron even more. In early January, following a two-point victory in Sacramento, he did an interview with The Athletic’s Sam Amick.
“You’re thirty-eight, and you’re doing things that have never been done,” Amick told him. “And the idea that a team would hold on to some picks and wait for next year—”
“Well, if you guys know, then you guys know,” LeBron said, cutting him off. “You guys know. I don’t need to talk about it. You guys know.” While walking away after the interview, he turned toward Amick and shouted, “Y’all know what the fuck should be happening. I don’t need to talk.”
Unlike his goading of his teams’ front offices in years past, there was nothing passive or ambiguous about these statements. LeBron knew the Lakers had options. The Pacers, for example, were reportedly offering a package featuring sharpshooting guard Buddy Hield and starting center Myles Turner. Neither was a needle-mover, but since he was still performing at an All-NBA level, LeBron didn’t think he needed another star. In his eyes, all he needed was for the Lakers to give him a little help, which they could do simply by attaching either or both of their available first-round picks (2027 and 2029) to Westbrook’s salary in a deal. After that, he’d take care of the rest.
Pelinka was reticent. He wasn’t interested in singles and doubles. He was saving the picks for a home run, for a trade that could both bolster the current roster and help set the Lakers up for life after LeBron.
“I think the calculus for the Lakers is to win a championship or not,” he told reporters in late January. “There’s no in-between or incremental growth. So as we analyze opportunities, we have to do it through that lens…The completely unwise thing to do would be to shoot a bullet early and then not have it later when you have a better championship move you can make.” In previous years, the threat of his expiring contract would have given LeBron leverage. But after he signed an extension in August, one that tied him to the Lakers for at least one more full season, Jeanie and Pelinka no longer had to capitulate to his demands.[*4] “He gets this, ‘Oh, he’s controlling the team,’ right? And the reality of it is, that’s not true,” Rich Paul would later say. “But for him it probably becomes very, very frustrating to be positioned as you have the control without actually having the control.”
Recognizing his lack of leverage, LeBron continued using the only tool left at his disposal: media pressure. On February 3, less than a week before the trade deadline, news broke that Irving had requested a trade from the Nets. Not long after, LeBron tweeted “.” The next night, following a 131–126 loss to the Pelicans, ESPN’s Dave McMenamin, citing Pelinka’s previous statement that the Lakers would “part with any assets” if it pushed them into championship contention, asked LeBron if Irving was “the type of player who could help your team get to the finish line.”
“That’s a Rob question. You got to see him when y’all get back to LA,” he said. “I’ve told y’all a couple weeks, I don’t speak for our front office.” But, he added, “Obviously, that’s a…what’s the word you use? A ‘duh’ question when you talk about a player like that.”
Neither Pelinka nor the Nets had changed their stance. Pelinka seemed to still not want Irving and the Nets still had no interest in taking back Westbrook. Two days later, they dealt Irving to the Mavericks.
“I can’t sit here and say I’m not disappointed on not being able to land such a talent,” LeBron told ESPN. “Someone that I had great chemistry with, and know I got great chemistry with on the floor, that can help you win championships.” He claimed that his focus had “shifted back to where it should be, and that’s this club now and what we have in the locker room.” But no one was buying it, and the Lakers had just two days to find a solution.
First, though, it was time for the two parties to come together for a rare night of celebration.
* * *
• • •
This was what both sides had envisioned when they joined forces back in the summer of 2018. The plan was for each party to elevate the other, for LeBron to give the Lakers moments to celebrate and the Lakers to dress them up in a way only they could. But then came the pandemic, and various injuries to Davis and LeBron, and a series of team-building mistakes.
Five years into their partnership, LeBron and the Lakers had yet to share an iconic achievement together, in LA, in front of Lakers fans.
After this night, that would no longer be the case.
LeBron sauntered into Crypto.com Arena a few hours before tip-off, 35 points shy of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time scoring mark. Tonight’s the night, he told teammates as he changed out of his shiny black suit and into his gear for the game against the Thunder. It had been a rough couple of seasons for him and the team, but for one evening, all the drama would be relegated to the background. For thirty-nine years, Abdul-Jabbar had held the title of the game’s most prolific scorer. Soon, that title would belong to LeBron. He might never match Michael Jordan’s six rings, but Jordan would never have this.
Before tip-off, the arena buzzed with excitement. Jay-Z, Denzel Washington, and LL Cool J were among the celebrities in the building. Magic Johnson, James Worthy, and, of course, Kareem showed up to witness history, too. A pair of courtside seats went for $24,000 a pop on the secondary market.
Looking to honor his pregame promise, LeBron came out firing. He scored eight points in the first quarter and 12 in the second. He entered halftime needing 15 to tie Kareem, 16 to surpass him. Coming out of the locker room, he drilled two free throws, and then buried a spot-up three, and then an off-the-dribble three in transition, and then hit a layup on a fast break, and then he converted another layup, this one off a backdoor cut.
With just over a minute left in the third quarter, the Lakers forced a miss. LeBron sprinted from one end of the court to the other, his thirty-eight-year-old legs outrunning all five Thunder players, and laid the ball in.
Two points to go.
The arena broke into a frenzy.
Kareem smiled and clapped.
One minute later, with just 18 seconds remaining in the quarter, Westbrook tossed the ball to LeBron on the right elbow.
He turned and faced the hoop.
