Dillon Brooks keeps the fire burning in his ongoing beef with LeBron James, this time calling the Lakers star a "social-media junkie" after getting kicked out of a tight game.
Phoenix Suns forward Dillon Brooks added fuel to his rivalry with LeBron James when he got ejected for chest-bumping him in the dying seconds of a 116-114 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday, December 14. Brooks has built a reputation as one of the NBA's biggest agitators, always trying to crawl under opponents' skin to rattle them or knock them off their rhythm. He saves some of his best (or worst) for James.
It took a couple days, but Brooks finally broke his silence on Wednesday, December 17, his first public comments since that dramatic ejection. "I guess he’s a social-media junkie," Brooks said with that signature edge. "He be all over the socials, so he be seeing I guess what I’m saying. … Like I’ve (said) he thinks that people should think a way about him or not say nothing about him or play a certain way, and I’m not going to play that way. He gets in his moods or in his modes or whatever it is. I’m all for that."
Brooks isn't just talking trash for fun. This season, he's putting up career-high numbers, averaging 21.6 points per game. But he knows his hot-headed moments have cost him before. "That’s my problem through my whole career, is I let those things happen and then I’m off the floor," he admitted. "Then at the end of the day, how much people hate on me and say I’m not a good player and all that, but when I’m on the floor it changes the whole game."
Let's rewind to that Sunday showdown. Brooks had just drained a huge 3-pointer with 12.2 seconds left, giving Phoenix their last lead of the game. He hit the deck after the shot, popped back up, and went straight for the chest-bump on James. Refs hit him with a second technical foul on the spot, ejection city. James stepped to the free-throw line and bricked it, but it was too late for Brooks. He had to sit on the bench and watch the chaos unfold.
The Lakers clawed back anyway. With under five seconds left, Devin Booker fouled James, who sank both free throws to seal the 116-114 win. Brooks, reflecting later, said if he could hit rewind, he'd have played it smarter for the Suns. "I wish we would have let him shoot that shot and that (expletive) would have been an airball." Bold take from a guy jawing at the NBA's all-time leading scorer.
This isn't Brooks' first rodeo against James and the Lakers. Just earlier this month, on December 1, he hit James with his classic shoulder shrug in their first meeting of the season. Things really boiled over in the 2023 playoffs, a first-round series where Brooks poked the bear one too many times. He trash-talked James pre-series, and the two traded barbs and stares through all six games. Brooks even got tossed in Game 3 for a flagrant foul on LeBron. His Grizzlies, the No. 2 seed, bowed out to the Lakers, and Brooks took most of the heat from fans and the front office.
For all his bravado, Brooks owns up to the pattern. "That’s my problem through my whole career, is I let those things happen and then I’m off the floor," he told The Athletic's Doug Haller. "Then at the end of the day, how much people hate on me and say I’m not a good player and all that, but when I’m on the floor, it changes the whole game."
Brooks says he'll use the ejection as a lesson to keep his cool in crunch time, staying on the court to actually impact games instead of watching from the sidelines. With his scoring surge this year, Suns fans are hoping he means it, because when he's dialed in, he really does flip the script.