LeBron James takes thinly-veiled shot at Warriors player on Instagram
Apr 4, 2023; Salt Lake City, Utah, USA; Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (6) reacts to being called for a foul against the Utah Jazz in the last minute of the fourth quarter at Vivint Arena. Mandatory Credit: Rob Gray-USA TODAY Sports
There was no LeCoincidence with LeBron James’ latest post to social media.
After knocking the Golden State Warriors out of the playoffs on Friday, the Los Angeles Lakers star James did a bit of gloating on Instagram. He posted a video montage from the series set to Drake’s song “Tuscan Leather.”
“I HATE IT! Started from the bottom, now we here, we made it! #ThekidfromAKRON #TheManInTheARENA,” James wrote in his caption.
Why was that so shady? Well, James made sure to highlight a certain lyric from the song, both with his caption and with the specific music snippet that he chose. “Tuscan Leather” has a notable line from Drake in which Drake raps, “Bench players talkin’ like starters, I hate it.”
That was a thinly-veiled reference to Warriors big man JaMychal Green. Prior to Friday’s Game 6, Green had taken a swipe of his own at James on Instagram. In response to James saying that the Lakers do not flop, Green posted a cap emoji (which is a slang way of saying that someone is lying).
JaMychal Green via Instagram. 👀👀👀👀 pic.twitter.com/GFS7biafOL
— terry (@terryworst) May 11, 2023
We know that James saw Green’s post because Kendrick Perkins, James ex-Cleveland Cavaliers teammate, revealed on ESPN that he sent it to James.
Kendrick Perkins said LeBron saw JaMychal Green’s IG Stories calling him cap because he sent it to him 😭 pic.twitter.com/k6LADprWmR
— Bronupdates (@Bronupdates) May 13, 2023
It’s safe to say that Green and the Warriors failed to back up their trash talk. While Green started in Game 2 and helped ignite Golden State to victory in that contest with 15 big points, he managed just eight points over 21 total minutes in the other five games of the series combined. Ultimately, the Warriors got blown out by the Lakers on Friday 122-101 to officially end their season.
Meanwhile, James waits until the end of the series to do his trash talking (as he also did after the previous round versus the Memphis Grizzlies). It is well deserved too since the Lakers, after starting the season 2-10 and very nearly losing in the play-in tournament, have now achieved an unlikely Western Conference Finals berth.