Dillon Brooks wants to learn ‘how to stay in the game’ after latest ejection, feud with ‘social media junkie’ LeBron James

Dillon Brooks has some regrets about his last interaction with LeBron James and the ejection that followed.

The Phoenix Suns forward said Wednesday that he was “a little out of character, a little out of my body but” in his team’s loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday. The Suns rallied from a 20-point deficit late in the game, and Brooks drilled a 3-pointer to give the Suns the lead with about 10 seconds left.

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While James clearly bumped Brooks on the follow-through, which could have been called for a foul, the refs didn’t blow the whistle. The league’s final two-minute report deemed this to be a missed correct call. But Brooks, who has a long history with James, stood up and confronted him immediately. Brooks was ultimately assessed a technical foul, which was his second of the game and led to his ejection.

“[I need to learn] how to stay in the game and be able to impact the game when I’m in the game,” Brooks said Wednesday, via The Athletic. “That’s my problem my whole career, is that I let these things happen, and then I get off the field. Then in the end, how many people hate me and say I’m not a good player and all that, but when I’m on the pitch, it changes the whole game.

Both Brooks and James received technical fouls in the contest, and James had to be held briefly after he thought Brooks had purposely thrown a ball in his direction.

Brooks wasn’t sure why James seemed angry with him early in the game, but said he thinks James is monitoring him and his comments on social media. He also called James a “social media junkie.”

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James, per Brooks’ point, posted about watching a golf episode on YouTube on Wednesday.

“He’s all over social media, so he’ll understand, I guess what I’m saying,” Brooks said.

«Like I did [said] he thinks people should think a certain way about him or not say anything about him or play a certain way, and I won’t play that way. Get into his moods or his ways or whatever it is. I absolutely agree.”

Brooks has averaged 21.6 points, 3 rebounds and 1.8 assists so far this season, his first with the Suns. The 29-year-old, who was traded to the Suns from the Houston Rockets last summer, is in the third year of a four-year, $86 million contract he signed with the Memphis Grizzlies.

While Brooks has certainly earned a reputation both with James and around the league so far in his career — his listed nickname on Basketball Reference is “Dillon the Villain” — he doesn’t think it’s intentional. The play that led to his ejection Sunday, he said, was him “being aggressive.”

“I guess it was a timeout, and then it goes back to the rule that I had never heard of, which is when there are bumps and things like that – like in every single game there is – [the officials] you pick and choose whether it’s a technical foul or not,” Brooks said. “You can go to every single game when there’s timeouts, guys are bumping into each other. It’s picking and choosing.