Longtime Drew League commissioner Dino Smiley told ESPN he expected Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving to play in the game ahead of James and DeRozan, but that didn’t happen. “We still have two games today and then six tomorrow, so we’ll see,” Smiley said late Saturday afternoon. Smiley said Irving playing Saturday “sounds like it would be a sure bet, but I don’t know what happened.” 2 Related While Saturday’s Drew League game was being played near Compton, Calif., about 55 miles away in Thousand Oaks, a participant in Los Angeles Lakers assistant coach Phil Handy’s girls basketball skills camp posted a video of Irving to her Instagram account who works with the campers. . Handy coached Irving for five seasons when both were part of the Cleveland Cavaliers organization. The Drew League game on Saturday marked the first public image of the 37-year-old James playing basketball in more than three months. He missed seven of the Lakers’ final eight spring regular season games with a sprained left ankle and missed 26 games throughout the 2021-22 season, which ended up being one of the most disappointing seasons in franchise history. “I’m 100 percent healthy,” James told ESPN during the first half of action. He finished with 42 points on 18-for-36 shooting (2-for-13 from 3), 16 rebounds, 4 steals and 3 assists. DeRozan, a Drew League starter who invited James to play on his team as well as Southern California native Casper Ware’s team, scored 30 points on 9-for-23 shooting with 14 rebounds. James and DeRozan’s team, called the MMV Cheaters, trailed the Black Pearl Elite by as many as seven points in the fourth quarter before coming back. DeRozan’s feed to James for a two-handed dunk with 1:22 left put MMV up by six and seemingly in control. But BPE followed with a 3-pointer and a layup set up by stealing an inbounds pass, and James was suddenly in danger of losing his first game back in the Drew League in more than a decade. After a timeout, MMV inbounded the ball to James, who was fouled with 4.5 seconds left, sending him to the free throw line with his team up 103-102. He did the first. And then things got interesting. “I walked up to LeBron and said, ‘Hey, I need one [miss]” said Mike Nwabuzor of BPE, who plays professionally abroad, afterwards. “And he really smoked the free throw. This was probably the best moment. But the whole game was fun. Large competition. It’s just great to share the pitch with him.” James missed the second free throw, but BPE’s Ethan Alvano hit a potential game-winning 3 at the buzzer that didn’t fall, and James raised his fist in victory. “I thought we could really do it,” said Albano, who recently signed a two-year contract to play in South Korea. “We had some mistakes down the stretch. But, man, that’s a dream come true to play against, with whatever it is with LeBron James. Somebody that I grew up watching, somebody that I grew up idolizing. So it was an honor, it was a blessing to share the court with him.” It was James’ first appearance in the Drew League — which was founded in 1973 and has seen a pilgrimage of NBA players climb into the Charles Drew Junior High School gym during summers for decades — since the 2011 NBA lockout. “When it first happened it was a surprise because Baron [Davis] he brought him to play and I think he was just coming to watch, and then he got excited to see the people and the game, and then he wanted a jersey,” Smiley said. “So that’s what happened.” Davis was one of about a dozen former or current NBA players on hand to watch Saturday, a group that also included Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors. Montrezl Harrell of the Charlotte Hornets; and Kendrick Nunn and Talen Horton-Tucker of the Lakers. Irving’s absence erased much of the day’s intrigue surrounding James and his former teammate. Irving recently picked up a $36.5 million player option for the 2022-23 season with the Brooklyn Nets, and James is in the final year of his contract with the Los Angeles Lakers, though he will be eligible to sign an extension with Los Angeles starting next month. . Los Angeles has engaged Brooklyn in trade talks in recent weeks to try to acquire Irving in a deal that would send Russell Westbrook to the Nets, sources told ESPN. So far, those talks have not progressed toward an agreement. Instead, the focus was on the court, with James — four years into his tenure with the Lakers — enthusing about the LA basketball scene. “For him to be here and come in the middle of the ‘hood where everyday people look up to him, he’s a superstar, so to come here and grace those people with his presence, I think it’s super dope. Albano said. “I’m glad he did it and it’s great for the community.” Added Smiley: “It was just an epic, epic afternoon of basketball.”
