LeBron James once tried to make a gesture of goodwill towards the Swedish legend, but Zlatan wasn't having it.
In 2018, the basketball legend that is LeBron James made his move to the city of angels, Los Angeles.
He wanted to win an NBA championship with a third team, and what better team to do it with than the joint-most successful team in NBA history?
It was a historic move, but in the football world, another star had recently joined a Los Angeles based team. It was none other than Zlatan Ibrahimovic, a man who defies age much like James.
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Both athletes moved to the city that year to try and bring once successful sports teams back to the top of their respective leagues, where they felt they belonged.
Zlatan welcomed LeBron to the city on Twitter, saying: "Now LA has a God and a King!"
The two previously hadn't seen eye to eye on a few things, such as LeBron's public stance on his own political views. Zlatan didn't like it and publicly urged him to keep playing sports.
LeBron responded in disagreement, but apart from this one incident it looked like these two behemoths of sports got along fairly well.
Upon seeing Ibrahimovic's tweet, LeBron James sent him one of his new Lakers jerseys as a gesture of gratitude, but the ex-PSG striker sent the jersey back with his own signature on it.
A lot of American fans and pundits took this as a sign of disrespect, but those who know Zlatan Ibrahimovic from his career in Europe know this is just another day in the life of the footballing legend.
After all, this is a man who once said: 'Zlatan doesn't do auditions' About the time Arsene Wenger gave him a trial at Arsenal at the beginning of his career.
Ibrahimovic clearly has a lot of pride, frequently calling himself a God and a lion among other outlandish things.
Ibrahimovic eventually left LA Galaxy in 2019, returning to Europe to play for AC Milan once again, winning the Scudetto in the 2021/22 season.
LeBron James went on to won the NBA title for the Lakers in 2020 as well, as the greats went their separate ways.
Topics: Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Lebron James
Joshua Nair