Lakers dysfunctional? The answer depends on who's doing the talking

Tom Gatto

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Lakers dysfunctional? The answer depends on who's doing the talking image

Are the Lakers falling apart, and if so, are LeBron James and his reps orchestrating the crackup in a plot to overthrow coach Luke Walton?

Those familiar questions re-emerged Saturday night after it was reported that Lakers players and Walton almost came to blows after a loss to the Warriors in Oakland. The narrative of Walton losing control of his team gained steam.

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Then came the pushback, presumably from people with direct knowledge:

Spin cycle? Perhaps, but it got fingers pointing back at Team LeBron for the initial report.

Was King James' camp going back into its bag of tricks to take out Walton and not have it come back to its meal ticket? (See Miami and Cleveland Part Deux.)

We'll need to wait for future episodes to get some real answers to the above questions. Maybe something will spill before the Feb. 7 trade deadline, or maybe it will spill after, especially if the Lakers fail to yank Anthony Davis from the Pelicans.

That's the same Anthony Davis who shares reps with LeBron and is now saying he wants out of NOLA.

Tom Gatto

Tom Gatto Photo

Tom Gatto joined The Sporting News as a senior editor in 2000 after 12 years at The Herald-News in Passaic, N.J., where he served in a variety of roles including sports editor, and a brief spell at APBNews.com in New York, where he worked as a syndication editor. He is a 1986 graduate of the University of South Carolina.