April 4, 2023; Salt Lake City, Utah, USA; Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (6) reacts when a foul is called during the final minute of the fourth quarter against the Utah Jazz at Vivint Arena.Mandatory Credit: Rob Gray-USA TODAY Sports
Apparently, there’s one specific criticism that irks LeBron James a bit.
Los Angeles Lakers star James addressed his haters in a post on Instagram this weekend. James posted a screenshot of his stats from Friday night’s win over the Portland Trail Blazers. James scored 35-5-9. This was his 108th 30-point game in his Lakers career.
“But I’m just here to make a movie!” James captioned the post. “You’re not talking about that, are you!?!”
LeBron James’ Instagram caption shows a screenshot of a game in which he scored 35 points at age 38:
“But I’m just here to make a movie! Aren’t you all right!! 👂” pic.twitter.com/oeA03VICbl
— NBA Buzz (@OfficialNBABuzz) November 19, 2023
The four-time NBA champion cited criticism made by many when he first joined the Lakers in 2018 – that James was said to have come to Los Angeles, the entertainment capital of the world, more to pursue off-court careers such as making movies than to Keep hitting the winning shots.
However, the timing of James’s post is not surprising. He’s certainly more than happy to dabble in Hollywood projects like the infamous Space Jam 2 and other movies he’s currently working on. The Trail Blazers’ victory over the lowly Trail Blazers in their sixth season in Los Angeles in November didn’t change that. In fact, since James’ arrival, the Lakers have a mediocre record of 214 wins and 188 losses (.532). They did win a championship in 2020, but it was an anomaly season that the Lakers haven’t replicated since.
But the criticism you can’t make of James is that his individual performance has declined – even from the age of 38 to 39, James is still averaging 25.5 points, 8.3 rebounds and 6.3 assists per game this year. Granted, that only moved the Lakers to a 7-6 record, so James will need to bring more success to the team to fully quell the criticism on film.