{"id":572496,"date":"2026-01-31T07:44:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T07:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/572496\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T07:44:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T07:44:17","slug":"alex-ovechkin-and-lebron-james-share-moment-courtside-swap-jerseys-after-lakers-wizards-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/572496\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex Ovechkin and LeBron James share moment courtside, swap jerseys after Lakers-Wizards game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Alex Ovechkin had an eventful night at Capital One Arena on Friday night, sitting courtside for an NBA game between the Washington Wizards and the Los Angeles Lakers.<\/p>\n<p>Ovechkin <a href=\"https:\/\/russianmachineneverbreaks.com\/2026\/01\/30\/alex-ovechkin-sons-wizards-game-trae-young-capitals-jersey-lakers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">met a Capitals-jersey-wearing Trae Young<\/a>, but also had another notable interaction with one of his GOAT peers.<\/p>\n<p>LeBron James, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reels\/DIHzJwjyp5_\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">whom Ovechkin first met in 2009<\/a>, played in what could be his final game in DC and made sure to dap up The Great 8 during the Lakers\u2019 142-111 blowout victory.<\/p>\n<p>Monumental Sports Network reporter Ethan Cadeaux <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Ethan_Cadeaux\/status\/2017419172444053733\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">caught the brief interaction between two of the greatest athletes of all time<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Ovechkin and James then met up postgame, where they exchanged autographed jerseys. Capitals forward Aliaksei Protas, who was also at the game, made sure to get LeBron\u2019s signature on a jersey, too.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThank you, bro,\u201d Ovechkin said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYessir, brother,\u201d James replied.<\/p>\n<p>A meek Protas then softly interjected, \u201cExcuse me, would you mind signing?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOf course, of course,\u201d James said.<\/p>\n<p>Ovechkin, with his sons Sergei and Ilya, then posed with James for a photo.<\/p>\n<p>Ovechkin has long been a huge basketball fan, likely spurred on by his mother, Tatyana Ovechkina, a two-time Olympic gold medalist basketball player for the Soviet Union. He has also long said that Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan, a one-time Wizard, is his favorite all-time athlete.<\/p>\n<p>Jordan, along with James, was one of the many athletes who <a href=\"https:\/\/russianmachineneverbreaks.com\/2025\/04\/06\/alex-ovechkin-goals-record-michael-jordan-tom-brady-lebron-james\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">filmed congratulatory videos for Ovechkin<\/a> when the Russian winger passed Wayne Gretzky for the NHL\u2019s goal-scoring lead last year.<\/p>\n<p>During the game, Ovechkin interacted with another basketball legend, Lakers superstar Luka Doncic. The Slovenian guard almost fell into Ovechkin\u2019s lap as he tried to draw a foul on Wizards players Kyshawn George and Jamir Watkins.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis would be a very interesting hockey matchup,\u201d Monumental\u2019s Chris Miller observed. \u201cOvi against Luka. I got Ovi all day, every day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Doncic, perhaps due to being touched by greatness, dominated the Wizards in LA\u2019s win. He had a triple-double by halftime and finished with 37 points, 11 rebounds, 13 assists, and three steals.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Ovechkin had an eventful night at Capital One Arena on Friday night, sitting courtside for an NBA&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3780],"tags":[7,6,682,468,3892,683],"class_list":["post-572496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-washington-wizards","tag-basketball","tag-nba","tag-washington","tag-washington-wizards","tag-washingtonwizards","tag-wizards"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115988598879110684","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}