ESPN’s Dave McMenamin on the NBA Summer League’s Top Standout Players

The Major League Baseball All-Star Game happened last night. Two Yankees hit back-to-back RBI knocks in the first inning to put the American League ahead. Normally that leads a show.

Not when LeBron James has just dropped a twenty-two emoji salute on Chris Brockman.

So Rich went to the only person who could reasonably referee it, ESPN's Dave McMenamin, who took time away from covering Summer League in Las Vegas to explain what, if anything, the king was actually saying.

His opening theory was that LeBron might have been laughing at the polos, since he and Chris were both buttoned all the way to the top. On the actual question, he was measured. "I think it would indicate that he's having a degree of fun with this extravaganza," McMenamin said. And the extravaganza is now, officially, in week three.

That is the real news here. Week three of the LeBron decision, and the volume is only going up, because LeBron is heading to New York for four public appearances inside about thirty-six hours. Fanatics Fest. A live podcast taping. A panel with Rich Kleiman from Boardroom. The Time 100 Gala. A taping of The Shop.

McMenamin's expectation for all of it is not encouraging for anyone hoping to get on with their summer. He does not anticipate knowing where LeBron is playing before the appearances begin, and he is not sure we will know when they end.

As for the emoji itself, he took no clue from it. What he did offer is a field of four. Shams has Miami, Cleveland and Philadelphia as the top three front-runners, and McMenamin adds Golden State based on conversations with people there who do not believe they are out of it.

The Philadelphia reporting is the most interesting thing he brought. The pursuit is real and it is not being run by the front office.

"They told me we're not actually talking to LeBron right now," McMenamin said. "It's our players who are talking to LeBron, and then filtering what they hear from LeBron back to us."

Tyrese Maxey is leading it. Long-standing relationship, both represented by Klutch Sports, summers spent working out together, and Maxey has called LeBron a big brother. It is not just Maxey, though. Jaylen Brown is in it, and LeBron endorsed Brown as an MVP candidate last year before he even endorsed Luka Dončić. Joel Embiid is in it too, going back to All-Star games and their time as teammates on the Paris Olympics team that won the medal.

Golden State has a similar tell, just quieter. McMenamin said people who have covered Steph Curry for a long time describe his handling of this as a complete departure from how willingly he has involved himself in past Warriors free agency pursuits. To McMenamin, that reads as genuine interest, and probably as belief that it could actually happen. Connect the dots between Steph and Draymond Green, who has been on vacation with LeBron, and you have a channel. Shams has also reported that Donovan Mitchell has taken up the mantle for Cleveland.

None of those four teams, by McMenamin's understanding, has fallen off.

On timing, he was honest about the personal cost. "I wish I knew, man. I want to go on vacation." Today was supposed to be his last day on NBA sidelines at Summer League. Instead he is taking a red-eye to New York. The real concern is August, still the dead period on a calendar that keeps stretching toward a 365-day sport, and LeBron hinted on a podcast with Steve Nash a couple of months back that he might drag this out. It is not reporters McMenamin is worried about. It is the team staffers whose one quiet month is already spoken for.

Then Rich took him back to the Lakers, and to the deep dive McMenamin wrote earlier this year, the one about the night LeBron passed Kareem for the most combined regular season and playoff wins in NBA history. The game ball from that night went from Rob Pelinka to JJ Redick for Redick's hundredth win as head coach, and it rankled, despite LeBron liking Redick. Brian Windhorst later reported on this show that LeBron did not make himself available at all during the Lakers' exclusive negotiating window.

Was a Lakers return dead on arrival?

"It feels that way now," McMenamin said. But he complicated it immediately. When that team went sixteen and two from late February through the end of March, the people around it described LeBron pouring himself into teammates and coaching staff. That is not a guy who has already decided he is gone. There was a bridge there, despite eight years of ups and downs with the front office.

Something changed. Rich Paul has said on his podcast that at some point between the sweep by the Thunder and the moment they told Pelinka and company, roughly eight hours before free agency opened, LeBron was eighty percent returning.

"I think this is something that myself and other reporters are going to be continuing to dig into for the rest of the summer to find out what really went down," McMenamin said. "The only person who can truly tell us what he's feeling has decided to be silent so far."

Maybe New York produces that answer instead of the team. McMenamin would take it. Why LeBron left the Lakers is, to him, still the more fascinating story.

On Summer League, he led with a name Rich was thrilled to hear. Yaxel Lendeborg has been tremendous. Great feel for the game already, and the right personality, presence and confidence for the next level.

The detail McMenamin loved was almost Rodman-esque. Not quite intentionally throwing it off the backboard for an offensive rebound the way Moses Malone used to, but close. When Lendeborg could see his initial shot was going to get altered, he already knew where the miss would land. He told McMenamin as much. Covering his game the day before, McMenamin watched him position himself accordingly and turn it into three or four putbacks off his own misses.

"Even if the Warriors don't get LeBron James," McMenamin said, "him with that aging core, I think it's a fascinating pickup and a great pickup at the number eleven spot in the draft."

Rich, admittedly biased, has been on this since Michigan waxed everybody at a late December tournament in Vegas, while he sat there with his youngest son Cooper. The height and weight comp, he pointed out, is very LeBron-like, a comparison he promised to retire unless LeBron actually joins the team. His argument on the numbers is that the Big Ten Player of the Year did not average twenty-five a night because that is simply not how Dusty May runs an offense.

McMenamin also flagged Caleb Wilson with the Bulls, plus Cameron Boozer, Darryn Peterson and AJ Dybantsa, who shut it down after two games. All of those franchises have cleared the decks and handed over the keys, which should make Rookie of the Year a genuine race.

He saved one shot for Chris. When he heard the LeBron take, all he could think was that it was a Patriots fan talking, because that is how the Patriots treat aging greats. Get out the door, we do not need you anymore.

"You've been brainwashed by Bill Belichick," McMenamin said.

Chris, for the record, was in Boston for Game 7 of the 2018 Eastern Conference Finals. He remembers Jayson Tatum dunking on LeBron.

"And then I blacked out after that," he said. "I don't remember what happened after that."

Some things you carry. Some things you get twenty-two crying emojis for.