With LeBron James playing in his record-tying 22nd NBA season, it’s hard to imagine a moment that would eclipse his once yearly trips to Toronto to take on the Raptors as part of the Los Angeles Lakers.
Many inside the sold-out crowd at Scotiabank Arena were wearing variations on James’ gold and purple Lakers jersey (he’s worn 6 and 23 during his six seasons with the storied club). When the 20-time NBA All Star missed a chance at a breakaway dunk, the audience groaned. When he hit any one of his 27 points in the Lakers’ 131-125 win over the Raptors, they cheered wildly.
But Friday night, James, who turns 40 this year, was overshadowed ever so slightly by early preparations to honour former Raptors star Vince Carter, whose No. 15 will be retired by the club on Saturday.
“Congratulations to Vinsanity, rightfully so,” James said after the game. “It makes all the sense in the world for what he’s done for this franchise, the impact he had in his community. The way he changed how basketball is looked at in Canada itself, obviously Toronto. It’s well deserved.”
Asked for his favourite memories of Carter in a Raptors uniform over his six-and-a-half seasons in Toronto, James namechecked No. 15’s 50-point game against the Philadelphia 76ers during the 2000-01 playoffs, “the two-hand windmill backwards dunk versus Indiana … (and) the lob in preseason down at University of North Carolina.”
James also mentioned Carter’s 2000 dunk contest appearance “when he shut down the dunk contest and gave you the ‘it’s over’ signal.”
“There’s a ton, there’s too many to name, obviously,” James continued.
As he enters the twilight of his career, James has seen himself morph from being the Raptors’ most hated foe — the chief architect of a number of playoff exits in the mid-2010s — to the most celebrated visiting player.
It was a rare treat. James was last here in April as the Lakers rolled to a 128-111 win. He won’t be back until the 2025-26 season.
Toronto has had a love-hate relationship with James. After losing 4-2 in the 2016 Eastern Conference Final, Toronto was swept by the four-time NBA champ in back-to-back playoff appearances. The four-time NBA MVP earned the nickname “LeBronto” thanks to his domination over the squad, which he embraced pre-game Friday night by entering the arena wearing the Ghostface mask from the Scream movies.
Aware of the moniker, James shared a photo himself in his Halloween getup to his Instagram Story, captioning it: “LIVE from LeBronto.”
The NBA’s all-time leading scorer also fielded questions post-game about his endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, which he shared with his 53 million followers on X Thursday evening.
“When I think about my kids and my family and how they will grow up, the choice is clear to me. VOTE KAMALA HARRIS!!!,” James wrote in a post, which was accompanied by a video that included a clip from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s controversial appearance at an Oct. 27 Trump rally at Madison Square Garden as well as a number of racist statements that Trump has made. The video ends with the phrase, “Hate Takes Us Back.”
James told reporters that he waited until Thursday because he “wanted to make sure that it was seen and heard and heard with force.”
“Having a daughter, having a wife, having a mother and things of that nature, what (Harris) believes in when it comes to women’s rights, when it comes to the future with my kids and where I see our country should be, I feel like that endorsement is only right,” James said postgame. “And c’mon, I mean, you guys know me. I damn sure wasn’t going the other way.”
But one of James’ close associates, Toronto rapper Drake, was not on hand to witness what could be the NBA legend’s final on-court appearance in Toronto.
The team’s Global Ambassador, who helped bring James’ Uninterrupted media brand to Canada in 2019, was absent from his courtside seats, which sat empty the whole night.
After James attended the “Pop Out” concert in June (which was headlined by Kendrick Lamar, who was embroiled in a well-publicized feud with Drake), the Hotline Bling rapper unfollowed his former friend on social media.
Last month, at Tyrone Edwards’ Nostalgia Party in Toronto, Drake hinted that he was severing ties with people he had been close to in the past when he issued a warning to the crowd about surrounding themselves with fake friends.
“My real friends are definitely in the building. But I’m going to tell you, you’re going to come to a point in life where people you thought were friends, or people you thought were close to you, they might switch up,” Drake was heard saying in a video shared to Instagram. “They might move funny with you. They might stab you in the back, they might do a lot of things to you. You’ll come to that realization. Wherever you’re at in life, you’ve probably been there and you’ll be there again.”