Did you catch LeBron James having a cool little whispering-into-your-shirt party with Lonzo Ball after the Cavs beat the Lakers last night? The two convened shortly after the game finished. It was there, in front of a bank of cameras, that James schooled Ball on, uh, something for a few seconds. Ball nodded his assent and the two went their separate ways. Naturally they immediately faced an avalanche of questions about their secret chitchat.
What did the two speak about, and why did James have this televised conversation while covering his mouth? LeBron is a very experienced passive-aggressive message sender, so how calculated was this all? Both parties played it close to the vest after the game. Here’s LeBron:
“None of y’all business.”
And Lonzo.
“[He] didn’t tell me anything.”
Still, the furtive discussion was a matter of serious scrutiny. The First Take crew’s merry dissection of the footage lasted far longer than the actual tape. Then, this morning, a plucky Reddit user found footage of the conversation with audio from what appears to be the Chinese broadcast.
Their transcript:
“Find your zone and just stay fucking locked in. The media is going to ask you what I told you right now (but so what). Just be aggressive every single day. (Inaudible)...it’s white noise. That’s all it is. Alright?”
After a few hours of speculation, ESPN confirmed that LeBron’s mega-secret wisdom to Lonzo Ball was indeed Try hard and ignore haters. Feel free to use this advice in your own life as well.