LeBron James Has Questions About Camera That Caught Him Fouling Anthony Edwards

The Lakers star was left dumbfounded by the NBA's camerawork.
Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (23) talks with his coach during a stoppage in play against the Minnesota Timberwolves in the second quarter during game four of first round for the 2025 NBA Playoffs at Target Center.
Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (23) talks with his coach during a stoppage in play against the Minnesota Timberwolves in the second quarter during game four of first round for the 2025 NBA Playoffs at Target Center. / Matt Blewett-Imagn Images

The camera doesn't lie in the NBA playoffs. Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James found that out the hard way in his team's 4-1 first-round series elimination by the Minnesota Timberwolves last month.

During one controversial moment in the hyped-up series, James appeared to strip Anthony Edwards of the ball late in Game 4, but after a coach's challenge the refs deemed that James had fouled Edwards on the play. They came to this conclusion after watching an overhead angle of the play that clearly showed James making contact with Edwards's hand before knocking the ball away.

That angle was provided by one of the NBA's "eye in the sky" cameras, which has seldom been used in the postseason but still been incredibly valuable, as it helped the refs make the right call on a pivotal play in the Lakers-Timberwolves series (Minnesota would win Game 4 and take a commanding 3-1 lead).

James isn't fully convinced by the league's new technology, though, and he had more questions about the existence of the overhead camera in a recent episode of the Mind the Game podcast.

"There was a piece of camerawork in the postseason of our game in Minnesota that I have never seen in my f---ing life," James said.

"The 'eye in the sky' cam," podcast co-host Steve Nash said.

"The strip on Ant. I've never seen that computer work in my life," continued James. "Where the f--- did that camera come from?... It was like some forensic files type s---. It was like a forensic files camera. I was like, 'What the f--- is this?'"

Yet, had the tables been turned, and the overhead camera had actually helped the Lakers in the playoff series, James surely wouldn't be complaining about it now.


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Kristen Wong
KRISTEN WONG

Kristen Wong is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. She has been a sports journalist since 2020. Before joining SI in November 2023, Wong covered four NFL teams as an associate editor with the FanSided NFL Network and worked as a staff writer for the brand’s flagship site. Outside of work, she has dreams of running her own sporty dive bar.