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Come Fan with UsWednesday, August 5, 2026

LeBron James’ passive-aggressive Instagram captions have begun with Lakers still winless

The Lakers are winless, and LeBron’s frustration is seeping in.

Ricky O'Donnell
Ricky O'Donnell has covered basketball at all levels for more than a decade at SB Nation. He’s currently the Associate Director of Programming.

The Los Angeles Lakers are the verge of disaster. The Lakers are 0-4 to start the season, with a league-worst offense powered by the worst group of shooters in the NBA. Anthony Davis is healthy and playing well, but it’s not enough to save LA. The Lakers can’t even pin their hopes on Victor Wembanyama atop the NBA draft because the New Orleans Pelicans can swap picks with them. This is unquestionably the darkest timeline the franchise could have imagined.

LeBron James might also be starting to slip, finally. James is still putting up big numbers in season No. 20, but his body language has been terrible, his shot-selection has been even worse, and he’s obviously no longer able to lift his team to wins all by himself. The Lakers absolutely blew it by failing to surround James with shooters, and even LeBron knows it. This is going to be a long, frustrating season for one of the greatest players ever who is having one of his last good years completely wasted by his organization.

LeBron is no stranger to the passive-aggressive social media post when the going gets rough for his team. I’m personally never going to forget his “FIT-OUT” tweet about Kevin Love back in 2015. Lately, most of LeBron’s Instagram posts are about his family. He can no longer ignore what’s happening with the Lakers four games into the season, though.

On Thursday, James gave us a new Instagram post with an extremely passive-aggressive caption. Here’s a link to the full post, with the caption highlighted in the tweet below.

“How long will you be taken for granted?”

Why not @ Rob Pelinka and Jeanie Buss at that point? The Lakers’ governor and top executive are the biggest culprits for how this franchise fell off the rails. Something tells me LeBron’s posts are only going to get more and more passive-aggressive before the season mercifully ends.

LeBron is stuck. The Lakers can’t trade him after signing him to a one-year extension before the season. He’s still capable of playing at a high level, but it already feels like he’s quiet-quitting on his team. At some point this season, LeBron will break the all-time scoring mark, and everyone will celebrate his career. That’s great, but it’s hard to imagine a worse way for an all-time great player to go out than with the terrible roster he’s stuck with right now.

The situation is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. More passive-aggressive posts are probably coming.

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