Dillon Brooks is good at two things: talking and basketball, in that order.
He’s consistently a talker — unless his team is imploding in the playoffs and he starts ducking the media — and inconsistently a good basketball player.
On Monday, he had one of those often sporadic good games, hitting 10 straight field goals at one point, scoring 33 points and leading the Suns to a win over the Lakers. And boy, he talked a LOT afterwards with LeBron James squarely in his crosshairs.
Late in the game with the Lakers down double digits, LeBron started talking to the Suns bench, something Dillon Brooks didn’t take too kindly to (h/t Mark Medina).
“I’m a competitor, man,” Brooks said. “I don’t really like the smiling and giggling and all that. Just letting him know that I’m here and I’m still rising.”
When asked about his history with LeBron specifically and if he reacts to the trash talk, Brooks absolutely did not hold back.
“Always. Always. Always,” Brooks said. “He likes people that want to bow down. I don’t bow down. That either entices him or aggravates him, either or.”
It’s an interesting ploy for Brooks to anger LeBron, considering how spectacularly it failed before. He tried this tactic while on the Grizzlies before the playoff series against the Lakers, then proceeded to get ejected from Game 4 and end the series with a 40-point loss.
After leaving the Grizzlies that summer, Brooks went to the Rockets only to be tormented by LeBron even still when he came back to LA.
Despite all these things happening at Staples Center/Crypto.com Arena, Brooks spoke on Monday about how much he loves playing there.
“They show me a lot of love here and I reciprocate it back,” Brooks said.
If you can’t tell, that comment is lathered in sarcasm. Lakers fans have not forgotten about Brooks and let him have it all night long with a chorus of boos aimed his way.
“They wanted me to keep shooting so I kept shooting,” Brooks said. “I love playing in this arena. Arena is great. Great players played in here. Magic, Kobe, Kareem, Shaq. Great players have played in here, so just to be a fan of the game, be able to play basketball for nine years and be able to be in that arena playing how I’m playing now means more to me than anything.”
Notice who he didn’t mention when talking about the greats to play in the arena? He’s really doing too much here.
Brooks certainly earned the right to talk all the trash talk he wanted on Monday. He was the best player on the floor for Phoenix and led them to a win. However, given his history of talking a lot about LeBron and having it blow up spectacularly in his face, he might have chosen a different path.
When all is said and done in LeBron James’ long, storied, historic career, Dillon Brooks will be little more than a footnote.
In each of his stops in Cleveland, Miami and Los Angeles, LeBron has had rivalries with players and teams that will be remembered. None of those memorable tales will include stories about Brooks. Instead, he’ll be the butt of the jokes as someone who talked a lot and never really backed it up.
But he’ll always have this one night in December, I guess.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at@JacobRudeor on BlueSky at @jacobrude.bsky.social.