The real unknown was, what does all of this mean? Why the sour looks?
He is being paid $153 million over four years to merge his star talents into the perfect star environment, he is being embraced by most everyone in town except for those creeps who defaced his murals, and he hasn’t yet missed a shot, so what gives?
Maybe he had a bad day in traffic. Maybe he’s a Chargers fan.
Or maybe he was upset at two questions, one asked by me, involving the business motivation in his decision to come to Los Angeles and how he will balance both Hollywood and basketball. They seemed like fair questions, considering his name is attached to 10 entertainment projects, and some of those projects, including an HBO series “The Shop” and the planned movie “Space Jam 2,” have made news since he joined the Lakers.
“My decision was based solely on my family and the Lakers,” he said in answering my question. “I’m a basketball player. I play ball. That’s what I do, that’s what I live by, and when I do it at the level I do it at, everything else takes care of itself.”
He added, “As far as my business, those things have been taken care of themselves way before I came out there to be part of the Lakers franchise.”
He was again asked about juggling responsibilities and he turned the question on the reporter.
“How long have you been following me?” James said.
“Apparently not long enough,” the reporter said.
“Apparently not long enough, there goes your answer right there,” James said.
Maybe it was that. Or maybe, just maybe, James was setting the tone for a season filled with purpose and devoid of nonsense.
Luke Walton agreed that James turned deadly serious Monday and noted, “He knows what time it is. He’s been around a lot of years. He’s setting the tone. It’s time to work.”
Walton added, “It was definitely that look that I’ve seen before in somebody I used to play with that knows the season is coming up soon.”
You know who he was talking about. Walton grinned. The media crowd laughed. LeBron ends his first day at work in a Lakers gym ultimately being compared favorably to Kobe?
C’mon, that has to make him smile.
