With the Lakers off on Thursday night, LeBron James was able to do his first alternate broadcast for Thursday Night Football as part of a collaboration with The Shop, where he, Maverick Carter, Jalen Ramsey, Jamie Foxx, Dez Bryant, and Paul Rivera watched Titans-Packers and talked about ball and life and everything else.
As they watched Aaron Rodgers and the Packers continue to struggle moving the ball consistently, with Christian Watson operating as the only significant receiving threat on the outside, LeBron James voiced his frustration with seeing the Packers front office wasting a “transcendent” quarterbacking talent in his prime by refusing to trade draft picks to put better players around him now.
LeBron “If you have a transcendent franchise player like Aaron Rodgers why won’t you surround that when you got the picks to maximize what you do”
Paul Rivera “Are we still talking football or are we talking basketball” pic.twitter.com/SoxIEvKTAp
— Gifdsports (@gifdsports) November 18, 2022
Rivera quickly stepped in to ask if they were still talking about football or if this was about basketball, noting what everyone else was thinking watching which was, James was projecting a bit about his own frustrations with the Lakers doing the same thing to him. James’ desire for L.A. to trade their 2027 and 2029 first round picks for help now is well-known, but for the most part he’s let the sourced whispers get that out into the world while the front office drags its feet on such a move. This, however, feels like his most blatant and public acknowledgement of that, as he couldn’t help but say “it definitely translates” to basketball as well. We’ll see if the Lakers front office is listening.