Things appear to be reaching a boiling point in Los Angeles.
Your Lakers suffered another blowout loss on the road Tuesday night — this time to the Atlanta Hawks by a score of 138-122.
D’Angelo Russell was being brutally heckled by Hawks’ fans in the stadium, and Christian Wood may have taken a passive-aggressive social media jab at head coach Darvin Ham less than an hour before tip after learning that Jaxson Hayes would be starting at center.
Oh yeah…and then there’s the late-night LeBron James tweet that sent social media into a total tizzy:
What does this tweet exactly mean? An hourglass could be rather innocuous — though we know James well enough that throughout his career, he isn’t bashful about sending veiled messages through a platform such as X.
Remember, this message was posted at roughly 2:30 a.m. on the East Coast where he’s currently located.
With the loss, the Lakers are currently tied with Utah for the final play-in spot. As of 1/31, LA is only 0.5 games up on Houston and 1.0 games up on Golden State.
From the jump versus the Hawks, it was quite evident the defensive effort was simply not going to be there. Anthony Davis was out with a plethora of nagging injuries, and the paint was essentially a free-for-all in terms of Atlanta getting any shot it wanted.
James appeared dejected after the game, but there was also a hint of anger in his postgame interview. It’s understandable considering the uneven play of the team more than halfway through the year.
The scapegoat throughout virtually every social media platform has been Ham. His coaching acumen has been constantly called into question, and many are wondering as to the reasoning behind some of his lineup/rotation patterns.
As the frustration mounts, one has to wonder what the direction of this franchise will look like moving forward.
Jason Fray is a proud native of Los Angeles. After graduating from UCLA in 2011, he’s written for a number of publications — including Bleacher Report, FOX Sports, Saturday Down South, and New Arena. In his downtime, he enjoys writing scripts, going to shows, weekly pub trivia with the boys, trying the best hole-in-the-wall food spots around town, and traveling (22 countries & counting).