Fool me twice: Dillon Brooks makes tragic mistake before LeBron James rematch

After starting out the season pretty well, it seems like Dillon Brooks is up to his old tricks. With a matchup coming up between the Rockets and Lakers, Brooks said about LeBron that he is "ready to lock him up". To be quite honest, this is pretty similar language that the role player said before his playoff series against the All-NBA player.

His play in that series was one of the major reasons that Brooks had to end up moving on from his time in Memphis and head on to Houston. He repeatedly antagonized LeBron and the Grizzlies were thoroughly destroyed by LeBron and the Lakers.

In the very small sample size of games that have been played so far, Brooks has played well for the Rockets. He's playing his typically strong defense but actually shooting well — 59.3 percent from the field and 56.5 percent from beyond the arc.

Why does Dillon Brooks insist on antagonizing LeBron?

In a perfect world, the role player would have just downplayed the matchup entirely. It would be great for fans if he could mention some things about how he could defend the King but the only good way to do this is by finding ways to compliment the player while talking about his weaknesses. Of course, Brooks starts to sugarcoat things after making a trendy headline but he shouldn't have said the nasty trendy line in the first place.

It also doesn't help that this was the first statement that the player made after the shootaround. If Brooks started out by saying the stuff he said after, it would probably have a lot less effect going into the matchup. Of course, James will most likely take this personally and go for a career night against one of the worst teams in the league.