{"id":163813,"date":"2025-10-22T17:41:36","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T21:41:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=163813"},"modified":"2025-10-22T17:41:36","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T21:41:36","slug":"lebron-lakers-opening-night-everyone-noticed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/10\/22\/lebron-lakers-opening-night-everyone-noticed\/","title":{"rendered":"LeBron Looked Different on Opening Night, and Everyone Noticed"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the first time in his career, LeBron James<\/a> was not playing on opening night. In his 23rd season, James had to miss the season opener due to sciatica issues. There is no timetable for his return, with speculation around late November or early December. The Los Angeles Lakers will need him to compete for a championship. But one thing was iffy on opening night: LeBron looked disengaged, flat, and sometimes not interested in the game itself. Rumors instantly began spreading about his feelings for the Lakers.<\/p>\n

LeBron Looked Different on Opening Night, and Everyone Noticed<\/h2>\n

LBJ is one of the best when it comes to handling things with the media. He is also one of the best at sending signals and showing his emotions with a single emoji on social media. Throughout the summer, there were reports that LeBron and the Lakers never talked about an extension, and that the team was moving on from him and focusing mainly on Luka Doncic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then, there was the Rich Paul statement<\/a>, which mentioned how LeBron wants to compete for a championship while the Lakers are building for the future<\/a>. That vague statement and LeBron picking up his player option were the talk of the summer. And it seems like the situation might get worse before it gets better. According to Lakers insider Jovan Buha, it was clear the vibes were off during opening night. He said<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I mean I don\u2019t want to play armchair psychologist here, so I\u2019m \u2014 I want to refrain from too much speculation. But the vibes with that situation have not been the best, I\u2019ll say. So, again, I don\u2019t really want to go too much down that road, but yeah, I mean, I thought there were times just looking at the huddle or looking at the bench that he wasn\u2019t as engaged as he typically is when he\u2019s out. Just in the observations I made of the body language, it was not great, and I do think it was a bit different than what it has been in the past in this same situation of him being out.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There were also social media posts showing James<\/a> not clapping or cheering for teammates when the whole bench was.<\/p>\n

The Lakers Cannot Win Without LeBron<\/h3>\n

For better or worse, LeBron and the Lakers have to figure out a way to work together. Due to his contract, it is extremely challenging to trade him midseason. At the same time, he has stated over and over again that he wants to retire as a Laker.<\/p>\n

\"Sep
Sep 29, 2025; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (23) during media day at UCLA Health Training Center. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Without LeBron, the Lakers have no chance of competing for a championship title. Yes, Luka is amazing, and they have some nice complementary pieces<\/a>. But they need one of the best players in the history of the league at his best and fully engaged to compete.<\/p>\n

Maybe it was just a bad day, or something was bothering LeBron. After all, it was the first time in his career that he didn\u2019t play on opening night. But fans in Los Angeles quickly notice subtle signs \u2014 and this one was not good at all.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the first time in his career, LeBron James was not playing on opening night. In his 23rd season, James had to miss the season opener due to sciatica issues. There is no timetable for his return, with speculation around late November or early December. The Los Angeles Lakers will need him to compete for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5291,"featured_media":163835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,26,62,3],"tags":[38,1133],"class_list":["post-163813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-lakers","category-nba","category-news","tag-lebron-james","tag-luka-doncic"],"modified_by":"Jordan Pagkalinawan","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5291"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163813"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163837,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163813\/revisions\/163837"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}