LeBron James’ career with the Los Angeles Lakers—eight years and counting!— has had many highs and lows. He won his fourth NBA championship, the franchise’s 17th, in 2020, and became part of the first father-and-son duo to share the court after the team drafted Bronny James. But the Lakers have missed the playoffs twice with LeBron and suffered three first-round exits.
The union between the NBA’s premier glamour franchise and its most popular athlete has also, not surprisingly, been a spectacle.
Released in October 2025, Yaron Weitzman’s book, A Hollywood Ending: The Dreams of Drama of the LeBron Lakers, pulls back the curtain on how it all went down: from LeBron signing with the team in the summer of 2018 to the Luka Doncic trade in February 2025. It’s a deeply reported, thorough record of the LeBron era filled with expert analysis from Weitzman, a veteran NBA reporter who’d previously written a book about the Philadelphia 76ers, Tanking to the Top.
The book also details the Lakers failed youth movement, the fallout from the disastrous Russell Westbrook trade and the lingering tensions in the Lakers front office. It’s a book for both Lakers fans and Lakers haters. These are 10 things we learned from A Hollywood Ending.
Samuel L. Jackson crashed a Lakers huddle during a game.
Early in the book, Weitzman describes how Kobe Bryant was given free rein both on and off the court during the 2015-16 campaign, his 20th and final season in the NBA. The rules did not apply to him. Bryant chucked off-balance three-pointers at will during games and would sometimes skip practice all together. “The laissez-faire atmosphere extended to the team’s fans as well,” Weitzman writes.
During one game that season, Lakers’ rookie Larry Nance Jr. felt a hand on his shoulder during a timeout. “We break the huddle,” Nance said, “and it’s like, ‘How the fuck did Samuel L. Jackson get in here?’ He was in there a solid twenty-five seconds, just chilling, watching the play.”
Paul George was almost a Cleveland Cavalier.
LeBron James was looking to shake up the Cavs roster after the team lost the 2017 NBA Finals to the Golden State Warriors in five games. So, at the behest of Dahntay Jones, he reached out to Paul George, a multiple-time All-Star rumored to be moving on from Indiana. James then met George at the L.A. native’s Brentwood home for a backyard lunch. The two hit it off. Soon, the Cavs, Pacers, and Nuggets were close to a three-team deal that would send George to Cleveland, Kevin Love to Denver, and Gary Harris and picks to Indiana.
But Kevin Pritchard, the Pacers’ president of basketball operations, convinced Pacers’ owner Herb Simon to nix the deal. He figured that George’s acquisition would have the domino effect of convincing James to stay in Cleveland long-term, which could thwart the Pacers’ path in the Eastern Conference. Instead, Indiana pivoted to sending George to Oklahoma City for Domantas Sabonis and Victor Oladipo.
Lonzo Ball didn’t read scouting reports.
Ball, the highly touted rookie point guard out of UCLA, was positioned as the next Jason Kidd but proved to be immature and unprepared. The Lakers coaching staff didn’t believe he read his scouting reports. So, one day, before a game against OKC, they issued a test. When Ball couldn’t answer a simple question about how best to defend Russell Westbrook, Lakers staffer Clay Moser responded, “If you read the [scouting report], then you’d know that.”
Then, in front of the entire team, Moser asked Ball to hand over his scouting report. Moser flipped to the back page, pulled out the $100 bill he’d taped to the back, and returned the book to Ball.
LeBron ditched a mandatory meet-and-greet with Lakers’ sponsors to watch an Ohio State game.
A few days after his introductory press conferences, James and the team were scheduled to attend a meet-and-greet at the Pechanga Resort Casino with the team’s premium ticket holders, business partners, and biggest sponsors. “It’s one of the most important appearances on the calendar,” said a Lakers department manager. “Every player has to go.” But there was one problem: LeBron’s beloved Ohio State Buckeyes were playing at the same time as the event.
James planned to arrive late via helicopter and join the party after the game, the event’s DJ announced to the crowd. In the end though, he didn’t show.
Rob Pelinka had trouble adjusting to the Lakers’ office culture.
A lifelong agent, Pelinka struggled making the transition from running his own shop to overseeing hundreds of employees after being named the team’s general manager. On the one time he invited his scouts to a group lunch, he ordered his meal before anyone else arrived and left shortly after they’d all sat down. When participating in a game of icebreakers, he shared the fun fact that he’d once beaten President Obama in a game of H-O-R-S-E, which, Weitzman writes, “drew eye rolls.”
Pelinka also showed up in the locker room before games and would sometimes attend coaches’ meetings, which is not something general managers tended to do.
The Lakers nickel-and-dimed mid-level employees.
For years, the Lakers had a reputation for having short arms and deep pockets. They were accused of being cheap—which infuriated Lakers co-owner and governor Jeanie Buss. In 2019, the Washington Wizards offered Antawn Jamison, the former All-Star now working as a Lakers scout, a more senior position at a higher salary. When Jamison informed management about the offer, he told the Lakers he would remain with the team if they matched the deal. According to a source familiar with the Lakers front office, Jamison was told, “We don’t feel like we need to match because you made so much money as a player.”
Jamison, who earned approximately $139 million during his playing career, took the Wizards job.
The Lakers also nickel-and-dimed valuable role players.
Alex Caruso was the perfect running mate for James and Anthony Davis. The Lakers' prized backup point guard didn’t need the ball in his hands to score and was an excellent team and on-ball defender. But when free agency opened on August 2, 2021, Rob Pelinka’s offer stood at three years and $21 million, with only the first two seasons guaranteed. Caruso’s agent turned it down.
Soon after, the Bulls offered Caruso four years $37 million with $30 million guaranteed. Caruso’s agent took the offer to Pelinka. He said that Caruso wanted to stay in Los Angeles and would accept a two-year $20 million guaranteed contract. Pelinka declined, stating that the original offer was as high as he could go. Caruso then signed with the Bulls.
LeBron organized secret team practices during the COVID shutdown.
Starting in June 2020, the Lakers met four days a week for a few hours per day for practice sessions at two locations around locked-down Los Angeles: Bronny’s high school, Sierra Canyon School, and YULA, a Jewish high school in the city. Players were given the locations and directions for the clandestine gatherings. During these sessions, which LeBron organized and ran, the players would get in shape and also talk about basketball and everything going on in the world. Anthony Davis, Avery Bradley, and Dwight Howard were the only Lakers who didn’t participate.
LeBron scoffed when a reporter told him he received online threats.
In February 2022, The Athletic’s Bill Oram published a piece outlining the budding problems between the Lakers’ front office and Klutch Sports. Soon after, James was asked for clarification: Did he still want to be a Laker? Does he have confidence in the Lakers front office? Yes and yes, he said. He then ranted against the press. “You guys take some of my words and just twist them to different places where they shouldn’t go,” he said.
“It’s so weird that you guys can take. . . not you guys, whoever started this whole thing.” James then looked around the room. “I mean, Bill doesn’t like the Lakers anyway,” he said. “So it’s always gonna be negative any time Bill says anything about the Lakers…”
The comments led to Oram receiving online threats towards him and his family. When James learned of this he told Oram, “Better buy a gun.” He later semi-apologized to him over Twitter.
A visit from Will Smith helped convince Russell Westbrook that LeBron was a phony.
In October 2022, with the Lakers off to an 0-3 start, Will Smith visited the team as part of Rob Pelinka’s “Genius Series,” a program he started where various, um, geniuses such as The Rock addressed the team. On this afternoon, James and Davis weren’t in the mood to hear from the Fresh Prince. They bolted from the film room a few minutes before Smith was scheduled to arrive. Westbrook thought that was a signal he could leave as well. Not so fast.
We gotta stay, Patrick Beverly said. Them two guys can do whatever the fuck they want… They won a championship. Westbrook was apoplectic.
Eventually, Lakers head coach Darvin Ham escorted James and Davis back to the film room. James then proceeded to dominate the Q&A with Smith, asking one question after another, stretching the 30-minute session into an hour. Westbrook watched the entire thing from the third row, shaking his head and rolling his eyes each time LeBron asked Smith another question.
I hate that fake shit, Westbrook said to a teammate afterward. I just can’t do it.