On July 2, 2018, Lance Stephenson agreed to a one-year, $4.5 million contract with the Los Angeles Lakers and, naturally, the news set the internet on fire.
As if a team spending $4.5 million on Stephenson in 2018 wasn’t funny enough, the 28-year-old wing would be teaming up with his bitter rival, LeBron James, whose ear he famously blew into during the 2014 Eastern Conference Finals. The jokes wrote themselves.
As it turns out, though, the dynamic between Stephenson and James was the least of the Lakers’ problems. In fact, Stephenson and James actually got along surprisingly well.