LeBron James Pulling Chris Paul Away From The Lakers-Rockets Fight Shouldn’t Be A Big Deal

The main focus of the Lakers and Rockets fight on Saturday night was what exactly happened to spark the punches thrown by Chris Paul and Rajon Rondo, with Brandon Ingram flying in with a late haymaker for good measure.

Paul alleged Rondo spit in his face, something Rondo denied but courtside camera footage pretty clearly shows happened. Now the question there is the intent of Rondo and whether the spit was just part of the two jawing at each other or Rondo purposefully doing it, which would certainly make him the instigator of that portion of the fight.

After the punches were thrown — and landed — by both Rondo and Paul, the two were separated by members of both teams, but one of the major subplots of the entire incident, leading to plenty of talk on social media, was that LeBron James was the one to pull Paul away and walk him around the court with his arm around him, rather than being with his teammates.

Many were upset about this, including some ex-players in Stephen Jackson and Kendrick Perkins — two players not strangers to on-court incidents — as they addressed the situation, while not mentioning LeBron’s name explicitly, on Instagram.

There were plenty of fans on Twitter that called into question James’ loyalty to his teammates as well, noting that he talked a lot about them being brothers, but in this moment he appeared to take the side of his longtime friend Chris Paul. However, what all these takes seem to not take into account is that this is how pretty much every NBA fight goes.

Someone steps to someone else and then, whether punches are thrown or it’s just shoving, players self-police the matter and pull the combatants apart, typically just grabbing whoever is closest and not worrying about who is on who’s team. By the time punches were thrown, Rondo and Paul had spun around to where Paul was closest to James and Rondo was closest to P.J. Tucker. So, James pulled Paul off and Tucker steps in front of Rondo before a Lakers staffer pulls him away. Ingram, who comes flying in, gets restrained by Carmelo Anthony and Eric Gordon, while Lance Stephenson, again, tries talking him down.

Now, LeBron walking Paul around the court to calm him down may not be the best optics, but James and Paul are great friends, with Paul being the godfather of James’ kids, and he likely felt like he was diffusing the situation. Beyond that, the idea that LeBron, of all people, is going to step in and let the hands go in a fight or even try to escalate anything is patently absurd.

The worst thing LeBron could do is get himself suspended. Beyond the damage it does to the team, LeBron knows exactly what his role and place is in the NBA and can’t allow himself to end up in a fight as the face of the league and given everything he stands for off the court. James isn’t going to let that happen and shouldn’t be expected to be anything but a peacemaker in these situations. So, yes, older players are going to have their thoughts and talk about the code of the locker room and question whether players will think differently of LeBron after this, but really it doesn’t matter.

For better or worse, it’s always LeBron’s way or the highway on his teams and if any players on the Lakers want to get snarky on social media about LeBron separating Paul and not Rondo, they’ll likely find themselves on their way to a new team by the February deadline. The code applies to guys that play the roles Jackson and Perkins did. They were enforcers, not superstars, so it’s not surprising they’d feel this way and it’s not to say it isn’t understandable from their point of view.

But LeBron exists on a completely different plane from them within the NBA and how people talk about his actions. If he punches someone on the court in a game, it would be talked about ad nauseam, and his legacy and reputation, particularly with his work off the court, would be called into question.

So, no, it doesn’t really matter that LeBron pulled Chris Paul away and tried to calm him down rather than Rondo or Ingram. And, no, Lakers fans shouldn’t question his commitment to the team and whether he’ll somehow lose the locker room over this. Every locker room needs someone that’s ride or die no matter what like Stephen Jackson, but not everyone can be that or else nothing would ever be diffused. It’s OK for LeBron to be a peacemaker, and it should be expected from someone in his position. The takes will be coming on Monday when sports talk TV and radio get fired up about this, but it would’ve been much, much worse if LeBron had stepped in to escalate than removing one of his closest friends from a fight and talking him down.