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LeBron James Takes A Dig At Frank Ntilikina, Feuds With Enes Kanter, And Annoys Fellow NYC Subway Passenger

By Edge Ison
Published on: 23:54 PST, Nov 13, 2017

LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers had an interesting visit to New York City for their Monday game against the Knicks. First, James supposedly threw shade at Knicks rookie point guard Frank Ntilikina. Then, LeBron and the rest of the Cavs players boarded the subway and managed to upset at least one passenger. Finally, King James got into a feud with Ntilikina and Knicks center Enes Kanter.

LeBron is the master of getting into people’s heads with his mind games and cryptic tweets. He did just that by subtly attacking Ntilikina and then telling everyone that he was trolling Phil Jackson instead. James said in an interview last weekend that the Knicks should have taken Dennis Smith, Jr., the spitfire point guard who went to the Dallas Mavericks instead.

James said, after their win over the Mavericks on Saturday, that the Knicks “passed on a really good one” by not drafting Smith. Some people took this as a shot against Ntilikina. Kanter, for one, came to his teammate’s defense.

“This is my rookie,” Kanter said. “I cannot just let (James) disrespect (Ntilikina) like that. It doesn’t matter if it’s LeBron or whoever it is, I cannot just let him disrespect him like that. This organization knows what they’re doing. That’s why I was pi**ed he said that.”

LeBron later admitted that he was taking a shot at former New York president Phil Jackson since he has some beef to settle with the Hall of Famer. Jackson, in an interview with ESPN last year, called LeBron’s business associates his “posse.”

“I wasn’t throwing shade at Frank at all,” James said. “For people that got their pants in bunches and things of that nature in New York, looking for any controversy here.”

At New York, James and other members of the Cavs decided to take the subway after their morning shoot-around at Madison Square Garden. LeBron whipped out his phone and took a video of their ride, which he described as his first time doing so in New York. Kyle Korver said that it was a choice between taking their team bus and enduring a 45-minute ride or taking the subway to get to their hotel in just six minutes.

As James was shooting the video, he panned to his right catching the passenger sitting beside him. The passenger, later identified as comedian and real estate agent James Michael Angelo, did not appreciate having a camera in his face so he blocked the NBA star’s phone with his hand.

“Can you not,” Angelo said before leaving his seat.

Angelo told For The Win that he didn’t realize it was LeBron James taking the video. He said that he didn’t recognize the NBA players and thought that they were just a group of tall men who probably played college basketball.

“To be honest with you, they got on and they completely squished me and he was really unaware of his space,” Angelo said.

As expected, the Cleveland-New York game was an eventful one. With 40.2 seconds left in the first quarter, James and Ntilikina got into it after an alley-oop dunk by LeBron, as New York Post reported. The 19-year-old Knick guard, all 190 pounds of him, was retrieving the ball for an inbound when the 6-foot-8, 250-pound LeBron ran right into his path.

Ntilikina gave James a little push when they bumped each other, which did not sit well with LeBron. James stared and stood still as Ntilikina struggled with the ball. Ntilikina had to shove James two more times before LeBron stepped aside.

Kanter came to Ntilikina’s rescue and stood in the face of LeBron. The two exchanged some words as things got a little heated. LeBron had to push Kanter away before the referees and other players came between them.

Cleveland managed to squeeze a 104-101 win over the fired-up Knicks thanks to the nine 3-point shots LeBron made in the fourth quarter. James finished with 23 points, nine rebounds, and 12 assists. Kanter scored 20 points and grabbed 16 rebounds while Ntilikina had six steals, the most by a rookie since Mark Jackson did it in 1987.

After the game, Kanter had this to say about LeBron James.

“I don’t care what you call yourself. King, Queen, Princess, whatever you are. You know what, we’re going to fight and nobody out there is going to punk us.”

When told of Kanter’s words, James admitted that he has already heard about them.

“Yeah, I heard that,” LeBron said. “That’s corny.”

“Well, I’m the King, my wife is the Queen, and my daughter is the Princess so we’ve got all three covered.”

LeBron, Kanter, and Ntilikina will face off two more times. The Cavaliers will visit the Garden on April 9 while the Knicks will travel to Ohio two days later.

[Featured Image by Elsa/Getty Images]

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