ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne: Why LeBron Has Never Fully Connected with Lakers Fans

ESPN's Ramona Shelburne hosts radio in LA. When LeBron James comes up, she said, the call-in line tells the same story over and over.

"Let's get rid of LeBron," Shelburne said. "And like, people, you hear it. You're like, do you not recognize that this is one of the greatest players of all time that came to LA after this franchise had been in the wilderness forever?"

The conversation happened on the heels of Dave McMenamin's reporting that LeBron took it as a snub when Rob Pelinka gave JJ Reick a game ball on a night that featured multiple LeBron milestones.

Shelburne confirmed the read on the ground.

"I drove down here, I was calling around about it," Shelburne said. "People in the room knew that night that didn't go over particularly well."

She walked through what the postgame announcement actually looked like.

"The Lakers do an announcement after a game," Shelburne said. "Like people have career milestones. JJ makes an, this is something they do after every game. He got his 5,000th point, Luka, the only player ever to score 600 points in March. And LeBron, this is a big one, he became the all-time wins leader."

The Pelinka moment landed wrong.

"I heard, you know, LeBron clapped, but people who saw him in that moment could tell he was a little upset," Shelburne said.

She offered the alternate explanation for the body language.

"He had been taken out of the game at a weird moment in the game," Shelburne said. "So maybe you thought he could have just been upset that they took him out of the game. But I think it was more a function of, you know, it's confirmation bias. When you have a feeling of how somebody feels about you."

The deeper Shelburne diagnosis is what makes LeBron's eight years in LA different from Cleveland or Miami.

"He's never been embraced the way Kobe was," Shelburne said. "He's never really been appreciated. Even the championship he won, it was in the bubble. So there was no parade here. That connection with him and the city never materialized the way that it did in, let's say, Cleveland or Miami."

She made the case for LeBron with the same energy she uses against the call-in line.

"He came of his own volition," Shelburne said. "They barely had to recruit him. He just wanted to be a Laker. And turned the whole franchise around."

The other piece, in her framing, is whether LeBron has leaned in.

"Has he done all the things that you would do to make to say this is my town?" Shelburne said. "Luka's probably done more in two years or a year and a half than LeBron has maybe done in eight to be out in the community, to connect with people, to feel like this is my town. Like, Luka, remember when he was paying for people's parking in the playoffs?"

She caught herself.

"All the, that's just personal style," Shelburne said. "I think that you have to evaluate on the court. LeBron James turned the franchise around. He restored them to glory. And I don't think he's quite felt appreciated."

The Luka piece complicates the math.

"It doesn't feel good to kind of be moved out," Shelburne said. "Dynamics change. I understand that."

Shelburne flagged what she saw repaired during the season.

"There had been a real repairing of the relationship that went on this year," Shelburne said. "Last summer was pretty bad. LeBron issued that statement that was pretty, you know, a shot across the bow. They did not offer him an extension. I think LeBron sort of said, oh, I didn't ask for an extension. But the truth is, he's never been in a situation like this where the signals had been sent like, your time here is ending and it may not be your choice. That's a really hard thing to swallow for anybody."

That posture changed during the season.

"That relationship had largely been repaired during the year to the point where I think there was going to be more of an embrace of him this summer," Shelburne said. "The path back to the Lakers is probably there if he wants to still be in LA. The question is how much money and how do they go about it?"

Her read on what LeBron actually wants is plain.

"I think LeBron wants to be appreciated and he wants to be respected for the fact that he did sacrifice," Shelburne said. "He did step aside. He did embrace that third role. And then when things changed and they had all those injuries, he embraced that role again, too."

The path forward, in Shelburne's view, cannot be performative.

"You want to get him a domination, you know, all right, with a DeAndre and necklace," Shelburne said. "Is that what he needs? I don't think so. You can't fake. You can't do lip service. You feel it when someone respects you or you don't feel it."