An empty gym caused one of the strangest traveling violations of LeBron’s career

An empty gym led to sneakers sounding like a phantom whistle, and James just … stopping.

The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Denver Nuggets on Monday night, thanks to a last-second game-winner from Kyle Kuzma that was only topped by his post-game remarks, in which Kuzma said that he’d shoot even if Jesus himself was covering him.

Perhaps the strangest moment of the game occurred in the second half, however, when the Lakers’ LeBron James drove to the basket, initiated contact with a defender, jumped up in the air … and stopped.

He’d thought he’d heard a whistle. There wasn’t a whistle, however. What had happened, apparently, is that due to the empty gym (you know, because of coronavirus), James had heard clearly the sound of sneakers squeaking on the floor, and assumed it was a whistle. He stopped, looked around, and then the confused refs DID blow the whistle, and called him for a travel.

If you watch and listen here, you can see — it does kind of sound like a whistle.

After the call, James ran over to the officials to argue with them and explain his case. They waved him off, but he got animated and really tried to sell it. For a guy who’s gotten away with a lot of travels in his career, he really did seem aggrieved with this one.

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What I love so much about it is that James argued with the officials over … him hearing a phantom whistle? It was almost like he was just trying to very animatedly explain himself so we would all understand at home, and he realized yelling at the refs was the only way he was going to be able to do that.

LeBron: You’ve got an empty gym and a lot of microphones. Next time, just walk over to the nearest camera and calmly explain what happened. You don’t need to yell at the poor officials for not blowing their whistles. They didn’t do anything. Just grab a camera and say “Hey guys. That was weird. Sneakers made a whistle sound. The refs did nothing wrong. OK back to basketball.”

And then we can go about just enjoying the game.

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