LeBron James is an NBA legend but that doesn’t mean one can break the barrier and make inappropriate contact with the Lakers superstar. Recently, camera captured an incident at Crypto.com Arena where an overzealous fan was ejected during a game between the Los Angeles Lakers and Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday. He had walked up to LeBron James and touched him while he was on the bench.
LeBron James looked frustrated
A video clip on Twitter/X surfaced which saw the fan grabbing LeBron James’ right shoulder but ‘The King’ shoved the fan away as security moved the fan away from the Lakers bench.
The fan could be seen saying something to James at the moment when he touched “The King” on his shoulder.
Another angle of the video showed what happened after the incident, with James standing now and walking away from where security seemed to take the fan. James was frustrated in the moment, as he continued to turn around while putting his warmup sweatsuit on.
A fan from the Thunder-Lakers game runs up to Lebron #Lakers pic.twitter.com/1gk0wwgXMF
— FFraire_ (@Fernadad1) January 16, 2024
A fan at tonight’s Lakers-Thunder game was kicked out after running up to LeBron James on the bench and putting his arms around him.
The fan was kicked out, and James was seen visibly upset. pic.twitter.com/FDQvjY2okY
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) January 16, 2024
When this moment cleared up, James steered Lakers to a win over the Thunder with 112-105 outcome, where he scored 25 points with seven rebounds and six assists over 39 minutes on the floor.
This isn’t the first time James has faced this. Once fans were trying to interact with him, as two fans were ejected during the 2021 campaign for doing so.
There was another moment when James was with the Miami Heat, when a fan sprinted onto the court during a game against the Cleveland Cavaliers to interact with James. The fan was wearing a shirt that said “We miss you” on the front and “2014 come back.”
“He said he missed me and come back, please,” James said at the time, via The Associated Press. “It happened once before in (Madison Square) Garden, so I wasn’t worried. There are metal detectors here, so we were OK. I embraced it.”
