Lakers insider spills beans on player fights in locker rooms, emphasizes on verbal altercations
LA Lakers' Jovan Buha weighed in on player fights in the locker room while clarifying whether they would be physical or verbal altercations. In his latest episode of 'Buha's Block', one of the fan questions was about the skirmishes between players behind the scenes. The Athletic's beat writer for the Purple and Gold believes it was mostly verbal.
Buha opined that physical altercations weren't as prevalent as it used to be but added that players would get into verbal disagreements.
"Players would get into heated verbal disagreements a lot more. It can even be internal beef sometimes. You'd never know it, and it's something that's escalating. Ultimately it goes away, but the internal communication can be a bit rougher than the cliche of locker room talk. There's a certain connotation in terms of talking about certain guys talk about, but I also think there is an element of confrontation and aggression in terms of how guys communicate."
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Over the seasons, there have been multiple instances of players from the same team beefing over different reasons. As for the Lakers, the Kobe Bryant-Dwight Howard kerfuffle was one of the key examples, where Howard admitted that the duo had their disagreements.
Such was the magnitude that the duo also got into it once Howards left the Lakers to ply his trade for the Houston Rockets. In the end, Howard quashed all notions of hate against Bryant and clarified:
"I don't hate this man."
Jovan Buha weighs in on the Lakers' comeback win vs Spurs after 0-3 run
In the same podcast that also featured the on-court storylines and the Lakers' win against the Spurs, Jovan Buha spoke of what worked for the Lakers as they snapped their three-game losing skid. He had a few takeaways, with Dalton Knecht's return to the starting lineup.
Buha added that bringing the rookie back into the starters unit was a good move. Knecht replaced Cam Reddish and went on to pour 20 points and tally eight rebounds as the Lakers won 119-101. The move also showed how Knecht was comfortable starting the game and was even more impactful as a starter than coming off the bench.
Up next, LA plays the OKC Thunder at the Crypto.com Arena on Friday (Nov. 29) as part of their Emirates NBA Cup campaign, where they will hope to extend their winning run. It will be interesting to see if coach JJ Redick sticks with Knecht in the lineup to keep the offensive spark.