While the Los Angeles Lakers are in the NBA Finals and only three wins away from winning the franchise’s 17th championship, but with LeBron James, the game is never the only thing on people’s minds. On Thursday morning, Kyrie Irving sent what some people thought was a veiled shot at LeBron James, when he said that Kevin Durant is the first teammate he’s had that can take and make a crunchtime shot.
While LeBron James didn’t directly reference those comments on Thursday, there is absolutely no doubt as of this writing that he saw them all over social media graphics. When he was asked about how he and Anthony Davis are so successful together, he answered in a thoughtful manner, before throwing out some red meat with Kyrie Irving’s name on it, unspoken of course, he and Davis are “not jealous” of each other.
LeBron gets asked about his relationship with AD and what common ground they have. He stops and thinks. Then says, "We're not jealous of each other."
— Tania Ganguli (@taniaganguli) October 1, 2020
While Irving and LeBron have since made nice in public after their breakup in the summer of 2017, it’s a matter of public knowledge that Irving didn’t like the special treatment LeBron and his associates received when he went back to Cleveland. While they were able to work together and ultimately win a championship together, as well as three trips to the NBA Finals, it was never an easy-going relationship and wasn’t ever really repaired until Irving went to lead his own team in Boston and found it much harder than he bargained for. Obviously, James still has some hard feelings about the way things went down, not that he has anything to regret. He’s in the NBA Finals with Anthony Davis, perhaps the best partner he’s ever had, only three wins away from Ring No. 4.
