Luka Doncic’s Lakers dinner fueled growing LeBron James tension

LeBron James doesn’t have a seat at the Lakers’ table anymore.

According to ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne and Brian Windhorst, general manager Rob Pelinka and coach JJ Redick had a reservation at the famed Craig’s restaurant in West Hollywood four days after the Lakers’ season ended — but only one Lakers superstar was in attendance.

That was Luka Doncic.

He, alongside his agent, Lara Beth Seager, sat down in early May with the team’s coach and general manager to discuss their strategy in building the franchise around him and how they plan to navigate the league’s new collective bargaining agreement.

While there’s a private exit out the back of Craig’s, the quartet left out the front with a mob of paparazzi in tow, which Shelburne and Windhorst said was the team’s clear depiction to the world that “Doncic is the face of the franchise now.”

The meetup, sans James, was just one of “a series of microaggressions” by the Lakers toward the 40-year-old who, barring a trade, is entering his eighth season with Los Angeles after picking up his $52.6 million player option.

Since acquiring Doncic out of nowhere at the trade deadline in February, the Lakers’ objective has been clear: lock up the 26-year-old for the future. 

And in the meantime, James is uncharacteristically becoming an afterthought.

“James understood the Lakers taking advantage of an opportunity to pivot to the younger superstar,” Shelburne and Windhorst reported. “But from James’ perspective, sources said, nuance was sometimes lost during the transition.

“Doncic had never asked to be a Laker. James, for his part, had chosen L.A., coming in 2018 when the team had missed the playoffs five consecutive seasons, the worst run for the franchise since it moved from Minneapolis. Two years later, James had helped deliver a 17th championship.”

Since the dinner meeting, the Lakers followed up by not even engaging in any “substantial discussions” regarding a possible short extension for James, creating a clear “planned end date” for James’ run as the face of the franchise.

When the Buss family sold their majority stake of the Lakers, the five-month-tenured Doncic received notice ahead of time, but James did not.

The Lakers have made it clear that the legend is no longer their priority, as they do everything they can to get Doncic signed to an extension sometime after Aug. 1 when he becomes eligible.

In the time since, James has responded by “poking the bear,” as he went home to Ohio and teased a return to the Cavaliers through social media posts consisting of his hat reading “welcome home,” and him writing “proper attire” on a photo of Lakers team broadcaster Allie Clifton wearing a Cavaliers jersey.

While these sorts of things can easily mean nothing, Shelburne and Windhorst wrote that a close source to James said, “Nothing LeBron does is a coincidence.”