Everyone knows the meme of LeBron James speaking to Jeanie Buss and Linda Rambis, telling them Happy International Women's Day. It looked like everything was going well in the Los Angeles Lakers' world, but deep inside, there may have been a feeling of anger and resentment among one of the people in that group.
Buss has been tasked to make the big decisions surrounding the Lakers for years, and with that comes having a lot of people in your ear, and you can lose focus, as well as trust. That apparently happened with her toward James, especially when it felt like he was being given credit for being a savior to the franchise when he signed in 2018, according to ESPN's Baxter Holmes.
That wasn't the only moment that may have set her off. The Lakers traded for Russell Westbrook to please James, and it was expected that the move would help them be one of the better teams in the league. Unfortunately, it was a bad fit, and the Lakers missed the playoffs that year. The thing that reportedly bothered Buss was that James didn't take any accountability for how bad the move went.
Fast forward, and she even considered trading James to their rival.
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“Team sources say Jeanie privately bristled at LeBron James' outsized influence within the organization, even considering trading him in 2022, and believed James wasn't grateful enough for the team drafting his son, Bronny, in 2024,” Holmes wrote. “Jeanie privately bristled about what she felt was his lack of accountability and the way James would shift blame onto others after the Westbrook trade, the people said.
“In 2022, in the aftermath of the Westbrook trade, multiple people said Jeanie privately mused about not giving James a contract extension and, later that year, even about trading James, with the LA Clippers floated as a possibility. (This was before James received a no-trade clause in July 2024 after signing a new two-year, $104 million contract.)”
It's uncertain if things are better nowadays, but many would assume so since that meme between James and Buss was in 2024, and he's still with the team.