From seeing and sharing highlights almost immediately, to chatting about games with your friends and funny comments from players themselves, the rise of social media has made following the NBA more enjoyable in many ways. At the same time, it’s also led to a lot of nonsense, and unfortunately, we’ve received some more of that this week. 

Following the Los Angeles Lakers‘ loss to the Los Angeles Clippers on Christmas, Kyle Kuzma’s trainer posted some critical comments about LeBron James on Instagram, in which he claimed that LeBron was “dodging smoke” from Kawhi Leonard. When Kuzma followed that up with a tweet — one he quickly deleted — that read “call a spade a spade,” the wheels of manufactured controversy were in motion. (Yes, writing about it now is only continuing that process, but hey, the game is the game.)

Early on Saturday afternoon, LeBron was finally asked about the online incident at shootaround prior to the Lakers’ matchup with the Portland Trail Blazers. As expected, he shut down any bit of controversy and noted that he and Kuzma are cool. 

LeBron’s full response:

Nah, Kuz came to me yesterday at practice and told me what was going on, and that was it. I really don’t care for someone’s trainer, or whatever the case may be. Everyone can have their own opinion. Any time someone wants to get some notoriety, they throw my name in it, and people gonna pick it up. And that’s why your asking me about it, because my name is in it. I’ve never met the guy, I don’t know the guy, I could care less about the guy. Whatever the case may be. I wish him the best.

Kuzma, for his part, also tried to put an end to the story. He said his tweet was unrelated to his trainer’s comments and noted that he has a “great relationship” with LeBron. 

For what it’s worth, Kuzma’s trainer, Clint Parks, previously worked with Leonard, which is perhaps why he was so eager to hype up the skills of the Clippers star. Leonard’s immense improvement on the offensive side of the ball certainly makes Parks look good. 

In any case, it’s pretty ridiculous that LeBron has to address nonsense like this. As he noted, the only reason this has even turned into a story is that any semblance of drama surrounding him sells. At the same time, it’s probably good that he did comment and was able to shut it down before this snowballed into a bigger controversy.