As you may or may not know, LeBron James is injured after banging knees with Donte DiVincenzo, and his team, the Los Angeles Lakers, are eliminated from the postseason. This means the closest thing to free time LeBron James ever gets.
There’s limited physical work he can do, but we know his brain is always moving. He’s watching tape, he’s watching games, and he’s evaluating players. For what purpose? I’ll go into that.
A perceptive Lakers fan on Reddit found this post by the so-called King James. It’s too risky to link you to the post itself, so I’ll transcribe it here:
"“Hali fkn hooping!!!! Where the lames who said he was overrated??!! Quiet as hell. That boy NICE and even more someone everyone would love to play with! 🧠 🏀LeBron James
@mindthegamepod”"
There is a lot going on here. I’ll try to break it down.
LeBron is 1,000,000 percent trying to recruit Tyrese Haliburton
First, pay attention to this part: “Hali fkn hooping!!!!”
Four exclamation points. Four of them. I usually see one or three in most situations. And sure, I’ll admit, I like using two to mix it up. But four is intentional. Four is a code. The “fkn” stands for “For King Now,” with “King” of course referring to himself. This is LeBron signaling to Pelinka he still wants four more championships and tying it to Hali.
The next part about the overrated bit is just a distraction measure. You know, when you stop trying to rate players and just appreciate them, suddenly that conversation gets a lot quieter in your own head. You don’t need it.
This next line is a little unclear: “That boy NICE and even more someone everyone would love to play with!” I think what it means is that if they were both kids that LeBron thinks he would be nice and would love to arrange a playdate to play Super Mario or Tony Hawk. It’s kind of sweet, if you think about it.
“🧠 🏀 “ - When you think about it, aren’t brains and basketballs essentially the same?
“@mindthegame” is a shout-out to the old British comedy panel show “Nevermind the Buzzcocks.” It was kind of a fake game show. I wonder what Simon Amstell is up to now. You used to be able to watch full episodes on Youtube back in like 2010. You can’t anymore because of woke.
Anyway, it seems very difficult for either a trade to happen that allows Tyrese Haliburton and LeBron James to be on the same team. Like, I love the hypothetical, and would love it even more if it weren't on the Lakers, but, like, how? And it’s even less likely that they could go back in time and play as kids. There is a stark age gap between the two. It just wouldn’t work.