[ad_1]
Nothing better than a friendly chat between old teammates, right?
In the first quarter of Thursday night’s game between the Lakers and the Nets, DeAndre Jordan was caught camping out in the lane, so Brooklyn was hit with a three-second defensive violation. It gave Los Angeles the chance to pick a shooter for a free throw attempt, but there really wasn’t much deliberation. LeBron James walked straight to the charity gang, no questions asked.
AFTER: Why Durant and Davis missed Nets vs Lakers
James, shooting just 70.4% off the line this season, slammed one on the rim, much to Kyrie Irving’s delight. The Nets keep, who performed alongside James in Cleveland from 2014 to 2017, could not resist the chance to troll James and the Lakers.
The ground microphones on the TNT show picked up Irving saying, “Is that your best free-throw shooter?”
It was a playful jab from Irving, but with a bit of truth. At the time of the violation, the Lakers roster included James, Alex Caruso, Talen Horton-Tucker, Kyle Kuzma and Montrezl Harrell. In terms of free throws, Horton-Tucker (83.9%), Caruso (83.3%) and Harrell (73.8%) were more reliable than James in 2020-2021 with only Kuzma (61.5%) below the quadruple MVP.
It’s far from the first time James has ignored the numbers. Back in 2017, Tom Haberstroh wrote a story for ESPN chronicling James’ struggles on the line, and he noted that James would often take technical free throws despite having better options on the floor.
But that’s alpha dog territory, and James has already evolved his status as a superstar in times like this. Consider the 2010-11 Heat, which many consider to be the most alpha dog team of all time. That season, James, a career 74% free throw shooter at the time, shot 15 T’s, while Dwyane Wade (77%) took one and Chris Bosh (80%) took zero. . James only did 10 of 15.
Turns out a failure didn’t matter much, as the Nets swept away a 32-point effort from James and headed for a 109-98 victory.
Hey, at least James didn’t go outdoors this time.
[ad_2]
