LeBron James wanted to call his own play and demanded that Darvin Ham give him the board.

The relationship between LeBron James and Darvin Ham during the latter’s tenure as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers was often seen as a bit of a troubled one.

Following Ham’s firing, a video has gone viral that shows James demanding that Ham give him the board to draw up a play against the Dallas Mavericks.

“Listen, I got it, I got it,” James said. “Hey, give me the board. I got it.”

I should point out that this game against the Mavericks took place on Feb. 26, 2023, so we were still more than a year away from Ham losing his job. As for the play that was drawn, it was for Anthony Davis to get the ball in the post. Davis got fouled and ended up making one out of two free throws.

That somewhat left the door open for the Mavericks, but the Lakers eventually won 111-108. LA was down 27 points at one stage in the contest and it was quite an incredible triumph.

Getting back to James, this wasn’t a one-time thing either. Less than two months later, LeBron was seen drawing up a play in the Lakers’ first-round series against the Memphis Grizzlies.

When the 20-time All-Star wasn’t drawing up plays like this, he was seemingly ignoring the ones that his head coach had drawn up. It was reported that LeBron overrode Ham’s plays during timeouts and huddles, and would then call his own ones.

While a player with as high a basketball IQ as James calling plays isn’t out of the ordinary, it seemed to be happening a lot more often than you would want. LeBron himself also revealed once that he vetoed Ham’s game plan to help the Lakers beat the Los Angeles Clippers. All certainly was not well between the two.

LeBron James Was Not Happy About Darvin Ham’s Plan To Limit His Minutes

It would appear that Ham’s plays weren’t the only thing that James wasn’t all that pleased about. In the season opener against the Nuggets, LeBron only played 29 minutes, and afterward, the head coach confirmed that was the plan moving forward. LeBron, though, was not happy with the Lakers’ plan to limit his minutes.

It actually wasn’t even a few games. James played 35 minutes against the Phoenix Suns in their very next outing and it was clear that the plan had already been thrown out of the window. It was pretty evident then, as to who was calling the shots, not that it was something that surprised anyone.

It wasn’t just LeBron who seemed to have issues with the 50-year-old either. Anthony Davis also took a public shot at Ham by claiming there were stretches during games where they didn’t know what they were doing.

When you also factor in that Ham had reportedly frustrated Lakers players by benching D’Angelo Russell and Austin Reaves during the season, the writing seemed to be on the wall once the team was eliminated in the first round by the Denver Nuggets. Just days after LA’s exit, Ham was fired.