During the course of celebrating their first NBA championship in franchise history, the Denver Nuggets have made a habit of bringing up LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers, who they swept in the Western Conference Finals en route to the title.
Ahead of their championship parade on Thursday, head coach Mike Malone went on ESPN and cracked jokes about retiring, a not-so-subtle shot at James’ post-loss retirement comments. At the title celebration, a local broadcaster called Malone “The Lakers’ daddy” to raucous cheers from Nuggets fans in the crowd.
Judging by the caption under his Instagram post on Friday, it appears James is sick of it:
Let’s break this down:
- “In Europe for the past few weeks minding my business” — this is clearly an effort to make Nuggets star Nikola Jokic jealous, as he had made it clear he just wanted to go home as soon as possible, and James beat him to the continent.