One comment from LeBron James sparked a ton of turmoil across the sports media landscape. On his podcast, James was against the idea of championships and rings becoming the “end-all, be-all of everything” when it came to basketball. He even pointed to other sports, like the NFL and MLB, as examples of the hypocrisy.
However, most media pundits didn’t take too kindly to his comments, instead continuing their messaging of championships being the only thing that matters. However, a close friend of James off the court and rival on it, Draymond Green, came out in support of the four-time MVP.
Draymond Green Sides With LeBron James: ‘Lessen the Greatness’
Both Green and James have been to the mountaintop multiple times. In their combined careers, they have 16 NBA Finals appearances and eight championships. However, both fell on the same side of the discourse around ring culture.
Backing up James’ words on “Mind The Game,” the Golden State Warriors lifer took to his podcast, “The Draymond Green Show,” to back up and dive further into the comments the league’s all-time scoring leader made.
He first pointed to media pundits like Stephen A. Smith for diminishing careers because of their lack of rings, claiming, “you don’t know what it takes to win a ring because you’ve never won a ring.” However, he didn’t think winning a championship was completely irrelevant.
“Is having a ring important? Of course. Does it add to legacies? Does it stamp legacies? Absolutely. I’m not going to sit here and act like having a ring or rings doesn’t matter. It does matter.” The problem for both James and Green, though, was the singular reliance on it.
“But it doesn’t make [Charles] Barkley less great than he was. It doesn’t make Allen Iverson less great,” he added as two examples, like the Los Angeles Lakers star did, alongside Steve Nash.”That’s what I felt like Bron was getting at.”
There are two sides to this equation. The first, as theSmith has brought up, is James’s obsession with winning championships, including the infamous decision to sign with the Miami Heat. And the obvious factor of rings being what every season is contested about.
However, the point of emphasis from both Green and James is all about nuance. In his instance, James averaged 33 points, 11.5 rebounds, and 9.3 assists, while shooting over 48% from the field in four consecutive Finals against Green’s Warriors.
He walked out a winner in just one, and it’s taken as a tarnish against his legacy. Similarly, leading the lowly ’07 Cleveland Cavaliers to the Finals against the dynastic San Antonio Spurs, on the back of a 49-point masterpiece against the Bad Boy Detroit Pistons, was a stain.
It’s impossible to assess careers without championships. They are the ultimate prize in the sport. But, as James and Green alluded to, any productive discussions around the sport are lost in an arithmetic exercise, reducing the value of everything and removing all nuance and context from a player’s career.
