LeBron James has been making headlines for a lot of different reasons lately.
Last week, he signed a new contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers for three years, $100 million. Then, news broke of James claiming that he would like to be an NBA owner some day. Now, he’s making headlines by suggesting that the great Michael Jordan often receives too much credit for his championship wins.
According to the Uninterrupted podcast network, Open Run, James believes that Jordan gets all the hype while his teammates are largely forgotten. To be clear, James is in no way trying to take anything away from Jordan or even question his legacy. Rather, James wishes to express recognition for Jordan’s valuable teammates who helped him reach such great heights.
“I don’t think MJ ever had a Game 7 in the Finals,” James said. “And people say ‘Oh, well he was able to close it out early’ and they act like he just did it all on his own. They forget about the shot by (John) Paxson on the left wing.”
The three-time NBA champion goes on to discuss how, in the key moments of some of the Chicago Bulls’ championship runs, it was actually some of Jordan’s teammates who came through in the clutch:
“You want to know the crazy thing? In that particular game in Phoenix, MJ didn’t even have the ball in his hands. (Scottie) Pippen brought the ball up, (Charles) Barkley went for the steal, Pippen threw it down to Horace Grant and that got the defense (out of place) because Barkley went for the gamble. They rotated to Horace Grant, and Horace Grant threw it to Paxson. MJ didn’t have nothing to do with that play.”
James has always been one to share the glory with his teammates; he has the ultimate team mentality. He often credits the guys around him for some of his greatest successes and has been known to prefer great passes setting up teammates to glorified shot-taking. Of course the King surely recognizes that Jordan’s teammates would not have won all those rings without him, but James is simply commenting on how having the right group of guys around you makes all the difference.
