Dillon Brooks on Exchange with Lakers' LeBron James: 'I Felt Like I Always Had Him'

Dillon Brooks still isn't backing down from his playoff comments about LeBron James.

The new Houston Rockets wing said he felt like he was unfairly blamed for the Memphis Grizzlies' first-round series loss to James' Loe Angeles Lakers.

"I felt like I always had him," Brooks told Arash Madani of Sportsnet about James. "I feel like that series was thrown upon me cause of the words that I say. But I've been saying things all year, and we won 50 games."

Brooks' antagonistic relationship with James played a significant part in his Memphis exit this summer. Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium reported the Grizzlies informed him he would not be brought back under any circumstances amid the controversy.

Brooks called out James multiple times in their first-round series and then folded when the lights got bright. He shot just 31.2 percent for the series while being dominated by James in head-to-head matchups when attempting to defend the four-time league MVP.

In other words: Brooks may have felt like he "had" James, but he never came particularly close and became one of the league's most criticized players as a result.

While many expected his poor performance to result in a lack of interest in free agency, Brooks instead landed a four-year, $86 million contract with the Rockets.