LeBron James wasn't too thrilled about the comments Kevin Durant made about the environment in the Laker locker room. "So much hype comes from being around LeBron from other people," Durant stated at the time. "He has so many fanboys in the media. Even the beat writers just fawn over him. I'm like, we're playing basketball here, and it's not even about basketball at certain points. So I get why anyone wouldn't want to be in that environment because it's toxic. Especially when the attention is bulls**t attention, fluff. It's not LeBron's fault at all; it's just the fact you have so many groupies in the media that love to hang on every word. Just get out of the way and let us play basketball." LeBron James sat down for an interview with ESPN's Rachel Nichols and revealed that he and his family were irritated with the remark.
"I was a little-pissed off when I first heard it," explains James at about the 6:18 mark in the interview. "I didn't know where it stems from. I was pissed, my family was pissed, my friends was pissed. We just didn't know why, you know, at this point in time in the season that my name or what I've done in my career was talked about like that. I don't feel like it's ever been toxic around me. And when I heard toxic I automatically thought, like you don't ever want to be around that."