LeBron James led the Cleveland Cavaliers to their 16th win in 17 games on Thursday night. His triple-double was the difference as the Cavs defeated the Lakers 121-112 in the much-anticipated first-ever meeting between LeBron and Lonzo Ball. After the final buzzer sounded, the two players stopped for a friendly chat.
Unfortunately, no one knew what was said, because LeBron did most of the talking, but he covered his mouth with his jersey so that no internet sleuths would be able to read his lips. But, internet sleuths are at times relentless, and one of them -- Reddit.com user IT-3 -- uncovered audio from a mic on the court that caught most of LeBron's message.
Now, at last, we have the shocking truth: LeBron told Lonzo he's signing with the Lakers next season and he can't wait to be teammates.
No, that's not what he said (sorry, Lakers fans, that was mean). As it turned out, it really wasn't all that exciting after all. LeBron just gave Lonzo some solid advice, telling him, "find your zone and stay f------ locked in."
LeBron's full comment -- or at least the audible portion of it:
"Find your zone and just stay f------ locked in. The media is going to ask you what I told you right now (but so what). Just be aggressive every single day. (Inaudible)..it's white noise. That's all it is. Alright?"
First of all, it's pretty funny that part of LeBron's message was predicting the intrigue about what he was saying. That's pretty meta. But also, that's just some nice solid advice from LeBron, who is more than used to dealing with all of the attention that Lonzo has been getting through the first few months of his career.
