{"id":437877,"date":"2026-01-31T11:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T11:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/437877\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T11:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T11:00:08","slug":"lebron-james-interaction-with-alex-ovechkin-catches-attention-during-lakers-wizards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/437877\/","title":{"rendered":"LeBron James’ Interaction With Alex Ovechkin Catches Attention During Lakers-Wizards"},"content":{"rendered":"

LeBron James<\/a> and Alex Ovechkin have a lot in common. Both are over 40 years old, and both lead their respective leagues in all-time scoring. And Friday night, they crossed paths, showing the utmost respect for one another.<\/p>\n

The Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> were in the Nation’s Capital to take on the Washington Wizards<\/a> on Friday. And with the Washington Capitals enjoying a day off, Ovechkin, the Capitals superstar decided to spend the night, with his family, attending the Lakers-Wizards showdown inside Capital One Arena (the Capitals home arena as well).<\/p>\n

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Ovechkin, however, didn’t make his way into the building like any other spectator. He scored himself, and his family, courtside seats to take in James, Luka Doncic<\/a>, and the rest of the star players from Friday night’s NBA<\/a> action.<\/p>\n

LeBron James, Alex Ovechkin Have Special Encounter During Lakers-Wizards<\/p>\n

While Ovechkin and his sons appeared to be enjoying the game from their front-row-seats, he found himself involved with James, as well as Doncic, on multiple occasions throughout the night. Most notably, Ovechkin and James could be seen “dapping” each other up alongside the court. The interaction immediately caused a stir all over social media.<\/p>\n

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“King James” and “The Great 8”, at ages 41 and 40 respectively, continue to play at a really high level in each of their sports. James continues to widen his lead on the NBA’s all-time scoring list, now with 42,841 points, as Ovechkin does the same on the NHL<\/a>‘s all-time goal-scoring list (919 goals). Neither have showed signs of slowing down, but spectators and fans alike show up in droves to attend their games as if they could be their last.<\/p>\n

And in that vein, Ovechkin and James made sure to autograph, and exchange jerseys, on Friday night. The Capitals quickly posted the picture to their official X account (@Capitals) with the caption, “LeGr8s”.<\/p>\n

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The cameras didn’t stop rolling there. The Capitals also posted, on their official X account, a video of the two legends’ interaction. James can be seen graciously signing multiple jerseys for Ovechkin’s crew.<\/p>\n

Ovechkin’s interactions with superstar Lakers didn’t end there. In the midst of the game itself, Doncic found himself veering off the court. And while Doncic didn’t realize it was Ovechkin who helped keep him from falling out of bounds until after the interaction, the NBA’s official X account (@NBA) was quick to post the video evidence as well.<\/p>\n

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There’s no telling how much longer Ovechkin, and James, will continue to dazzle fans with their play, even at their advanced ages, but as is evident on a nightly, basis, even other Hall-of-Fame athletes look to get a glimpse in person while they still can.<\/p>\n

Ovechkin will return to the ice for the Capitals, at home, against the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday while James will take on the New York Knicks<\/a>, inside Madison Square Garden, on Sunday. The stars will likely be scattered everywhere inside the “Mecca” for what could be James’ last game ever inside Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n

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This story was originally published by Athlon Sports<\/a> on Jan 31, 2026, where it first appeared in the NBA<\/a> section. Add Athlon Sports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LeBron James and Alex Ovechkin have a lot in common. Both are over 40 years old, and both…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5114],"tags":[426,191,29,5,53671,4617,2068,8667,1671,4,1560,190,109,9647,5222],"class_list":["post-437877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-washington-capitals","tag-alex-ovechkin","tag-capitals","tag-carolina-hurricanes","tag-hockey","tag-king-james","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-luka-doncic","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-nhl","tag-the-capitals","tag-washington","tag-washington-capitals","tag-washington-wizards","tag-washingtoncapitals"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115989369616482395","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}