Russell Westbrook’s time with the Los Angeles Lakers has come under heavy scrutiny two years after his departure from the team, as he continues to struggle to land a new NBA deal. To many, teaming up with LeBron James on the court marked the beginning of his downfall, and to be fair, Westbrook himself doesn’t think too highly of The King.
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Did Westbrook really call James “fake”? That’s what many believe, with the narrative resurfacing recently. It’s supposedly not a new comment either and dates back to Russ’s Lakers days. But here’s the thing. The story came from a new book titled ‘A Hollywood Ending: The Dreams and Drama of the LeBron Lakers’, written by Yaron Weitzman.
Weitzman claimed that Russ, who recently joined the Sacramento Kings, made those comments to an unnamed source. In today’s world, that might be enough to smear James’s name further, but it’s anything but confirmed. That’s why Richard Jefferson, who won a ring with the King back in 2016, isn’t buying into it too much yet.
Jefferson spoke about this latest controversy on the Road Trippin podcast along with fellow veteran Channing Frye, who also knows Bron well.
“The book can’t sell without these types of things. If you’re just telling a story, there’s no gotcha moment,” stated Jefferson, who noted that the entire viewpoint of Weitzman’s story had to be surrounded by drama, since it was literally in the title.
“So if you look at this, there’s an unnamed source that is saying something and this is where the beef started. So now we’re talking about something that is hypothetical that we cannot confirm. That we don’t know. So that’s where it’s like, I don’t know if that happened.”
Jefferson did mention that he wasn’t saying these comments were untrue, just that he was not going to fully buy into the story until he got it directly from the source itself. And he should question it. The lack of media literacy in today’s society is astounding. Too many people will just accept this as fact. Why? Because they’re too lazy to do any follow up research.
RJ, for one, knows what kind of guy LeBron is from their time together on the Cavaliers. He shared a story that showed James being genuine rather than the alleged “fake.”
“We had a film session and Bron was being grumpy. Then we had dinner that night, Channing and I were like, ‘Naw we ain’t going to dinner with his old grumpy a**.’ As soon as we get there, Bron’s a little tipsy now right? And he comes over to us and is like, ‘Guys, I’m sorry I was being so grumpy earlier.’ And Channing and I were like, ‘It’s okay big fella. We know you got a lot on your shoulders.'”
They were laughing, but Frye and Jefferson seemed to genuinely understand what LeBron was going through. The weight of the league had been on his shoulders for so long. No amount of success would ever allow a certain section of the basketball world to let LeBron live down any kind of failure.
Jefferson added that everyone at that time was generally grumpy. “Cause we were all being grumpy. He knew he was being grumpy but we were all chill because we knew how much this motherf***** got on his shoulders.”
“That’s the human side we get to see. Maybe somebody else didn’t get to see that space because he’s always got to be a certain way. But I’ve seen him be real. I’ve seen seen him on some real sh**, like apologizing to his bros for being super grumpy. And I’ve been around superstars who would never f****** do that.”
This already seems ten times more believable than the unnamed source’s version of James. Sure, he’s probably not a saint to everyone, but to claim he’s “fake” just because he carries the pressure of being the face of the NBA? That’s not telling the whole story.
James obviously has people in his inner circle who are closer to him, but there’s no denying the bond he shares with Frye and RJ. That 2016 Cavaliers team pulled off the impossible, coming back from a 3–1 deficit against the Warriors to make history. They still joke that they’re all on a group text together.
So while headlines might love the idea of more “LeBron drama,” this one feels like a stretch. The people who actually know him have seen the real LeBron, flaws and all. He’s not perfect, but “fake” doesn’t fit the guy who owns up to his bad moods and apologizes to teammates. The truth usually comes from those who were actually there, not from an unnamed source.
