LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers are off to a tremendous start to the 2024-25 season, as they improved to 3-0 on Saturday night with a 131-127 win over the Sacramento Kings. James and Anthony Davis have led the way, with Davis looking the part of an early MVP candidate, and the Lakers supporting cast is doing its job around them…for the most part.
I say for the most part because on Saturday night, Rui Hachimura had LeBron fuming in the fourth quarter after Rui chose to look off the Hall of Famer and take a pull-up jumper while James was red-hot. On the bench in a timeout a few seconds later, a hot mic caught James letting Hachimura know what the protocol is when he’s got the hot hand, and, spoiler alert, it is not for Hachimura or anyone else to take a contested jumper — even from 4 feet.
“Swing that motherf**ker to me,” LeBron says. “I just made 10 in a row and you gonna take a pull-up, contested two? Swing, swing motherf**ker.”
Look, the man is right. He’d just scored 15 of the Lakers last 17 points (and assisted on the other two) to lead a charge from L.A. to go from seven down to open the fourth to 11 up when this timeout happened. Sometimes you gotta just keep feeding the hot hand, especially when the hot hand is also one of the best players in NBA history. I think next time James has it rolling and Hachimura has the ball he will indeed “swing that motherf**ker.”