Well tbh the biggest failing of Lebron is his ego, he thinks he is still the Chosen One so he probably thought its a lock to the Finals no matter what team he joined. This is the time he proclaimed himself the GOAT so his ego is definitely at an all time high. As one of the biggest Lebron fans around its so sad to see him walk down the wrong path and destroy his own legacy. He was the only guy in history to ever threaten MJ and at worst he was trailing as the 2nd best but I dunno where he is now all time.
Making the playoffs was a longshot with beasley, mcgee, rondo, and stephenson as your secondary leaders. What a motley crue that is/was. That quartet was as questionable as ennis, melo, and mcw.
it’s easy to pile on Lebron now, but the man is 34 and has played in a sh*t ton of regular season and playoff games...the mileage is insane the vast majority of guys are done at this age, and only a select few are still star caliber, and even smaller number have still been superstar caliber u should’ve came to Houston Bron...you could coast every regular season here and it wouldn’t have cost u a thing...u could’ve gone 70-80% and we could still be the 1 seed out West...I had dreams of multiple championships if u came here, but u decided to head to LA even then, Lakers were 4th in the West and really starting to play well when he got injured...they imploded after that going 6-12, and then the AD trade saga happened which has pretty much ruined the team...they’ll be lucky to make the playoffs
I can imagine a situation where the young guys on the team are looking at the vets like, "Man, yall need to grow up."
So why the pick lakers if all this is true? You dont join a rebuilding team at 34 then b**** about it when things dont go your way
I don’t understand why these people are still on the air. Like, I’ve never heard a single person say ‘I wonder how SAS feels about this?’ Whoever does advertising for these people should become minor dieties in the marketing world.
I certainly can't speak for everybody, but something someone saw on first take or one of those other garbage shows shows comes up an alarming amount at work when a sports is being discussed. Not only that, it most certainly plays a huge part in whatever their opinion is on a certain topic. In their eyes if ESPN puts them on the air, they must know what they are talking about. Most sports fans are casuals, therefore they'll parrot whatever the mainstream opinion is. These shows are their go to for said mainstream opinion. Combine that with "hot takes" that clearly drive ratings the same way shock value drives ratings in other regular shows. It's absolute garbage, but it clearly attracts viewers, that's why their presence continues to grow. ESPN gave up on any actual integrity many years ago.
With ESPN, there's always sprinkles of being right on every topic. I was just confused by his points (#2 and #3). #2 - he essentially has Harden behind Paul George. But then he ends the convo as if he's more of a believer in Harden. I would've been fine with him picking a definitive stance. I mean... he did just go up and announce definitively that, to him and to the ESPN family, that Lebron is no longer the "best player in the world". It sorta begs the question... then who is? He was wishy-washy is all I'm saying.
Lebron is worried about 2 Chainz album he helped work on. They say he missed the warriors game due to being tired from doing the music video shoot the night before. Lol.
It comes down to him wanting to be a brand from day 1, over the joy of competition at the highest level like a Jordan. Or the heart of AI who balled every game cause he loved it. He influenced a lot of mentally weak players like Durant to make worse decisions and it's led to a pretty crappy culture throughout the league. At the end of the day, no amount of money, branding or press ever makes up for that love of the game, love of competition and love of camaraderie.
Harden doesn’t show up for many games? What are you watching. Dude just put a GLeague literally GLeague roster on his back and went 21-11 to get the Rockets within 1.5 games of the 3 seed after being in 14th Place. And all the numbers box score and advance say harden is by far the best player in the league and it’s by a wide gap. I don’t get the harden doesn’t come to play crap. That stuff is dead. The guy doesn’t miss games plays hurt and drives to the basket taking contact all game. Not to mention he’s getting 7-10 assists agame also.
AI maybe but Jordan is the wrong example as he quit two times, 1 time to even play a different sport so thats a big FU to love of the game, love of the competition. Almost all of his teammates were afraid of him so FU to love of camaraderie. As for brand..c'mon bro. Ever hear of Space Jam? Jordan Jumpman brand? Jordan is the brand goat literally made Nike the largest sports company so don't act like MJ didn't want to be a brand you telling me he hated it when Jumpman's logo is of him dunking? Lol! I think you mean Kobe, that guy played as long as he was physically able to.
LeBron effectively retired when he chose LA. He wanted to be in LA for the Hollywood opportunities. Now his competitive nature is kicking in and he wants to win more titles. He won't say it publically, but I bet he regrets signing a 4 year deal with the Lakers. Probably should have just signed a 1 and 1 deal
