Rumors

Two days after losing to the Blazers, the Lakers were back at their facility for a practice. Pelinka informed the players a special guest would be coming through. He’d created a program called the Genius Series, where he’d bring in luminaries from various fields—Dwayne “The Rock’’ Johnson, Kendrick Lamar, Elon Musk—to address the team. For this day, he’d secured an A-lister: Will Smith, just six months removed from slapping Chris Rock during the 94th Academy Awards. The team gathered in the film room to review the Blazers game. Ham was tough on the group, highlighting all sorts of mistakes that had led to the 0-3 start. When the session concluded, Pelinka came by. He’d already shown Smith the practice court—they shot free throws together—and Jeanie Buss’s office. Now, he told the players, Smith was on his way to them. When Pelinka and Ham left to fetch him, LeBron, seated in a middle row, stood up. Y’all got this, he said. He stormed out a back door. Shit, man, Davis said. He stood and followed LeBron out.

The Ringer

NBC Sports Philadelphia: Paul George: "I think I can make the transition. If Will Smith can go to Beverly Hills, I think I can come to Philadelphia."

Twitter

When Portland star Damian Lillard was seen smiling and laughing to the sounds of Will Smith’s famous song, “Miami” on Instagram Live on Friday in a 45-second clip of captured video that went viral, it was only natural to wonder if he was sending some sort of message to the Trail Blazers about his possible desire to be traded to the Miami Heat. But his agent, Aaron Goodwin, chose to clarify and contextualize the scene with The Athletic on Friday night. As Goodwin shared, Lillard is currently on a “working vacation” in Paris and was at a club when the DJ, presumably, chose to make light of his uncertain and well-chronicled situation. “The music was just a coincidence,” Goodwin told The Athletic.

The Athletic