A bizarre narrative surrounding LeBron James started making the rounds this week.
Last week, Shaquille O’Neal and Mario Chalmers spoke on a podcast regarding the latter’s assertion that players were never scared of James.
O’Neal seemed to agree with that general idea. He suggested that players feared the likes of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant – but not James.
This is demonstrably false.
A number of players have come out and literally said they were scared to play against James throughout his career. It isn’t that hard to find their quotes.
“There’s only like one person who’s scarier, and that’s God,” George Hill famously said in 2013, as noted by Fadeaway World.
Hill wasn’t alone in feeling that way, though. Former Toronto Raptors star and current Chicago Bulls star, DeMar DeRozan, also said something similiar.
“I think the play that sticks out to me is Game 3, my last year in Toronto, where he went full court, shot the one-legged floater, and made it,” DeRozan said a few years ago.
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— Game 7 (@game7__) March 22, 2024
“That was it, that was like the end of my time in Toronto, that was it. We was down 3-0, obviously, we lost Game 4. I was out the game and I just remember him shooting that one-legged floater and it going in and I was just like ‘s***, this is it here.’ It was it. That one haunt me for sure.”
Channing Frye also dropped the hammer on Chalmers and O’Neal this past week.
“You know who fears LeBron James?” he asked.
“You know who fears LeBron James? Organizations, coaches… LeBron is almost 40 years old and nobody wants to be No. 1 and play the Lakers in the first round.”@ChanningFrye on claims that players don’t fear LeBron as they did MJ and Kobe pic.twitter.com/NEptMI2Jeo
— NBA TV (@NBATV) March 16, 2024
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— Game 7 (@game7__) March 19, 2024
“Organizations, coaches — players fear him. Jordan and Kobe and even Shaq were feared because of the rules and you had to play them mostly one-on-one so they would embarrass you.
“LeBron’s game is not like that. It’s cerebral, it’s like winning. So he’s gonna give you 50, 14, and 13 but it’s not gonna be the same. There are players who fear him in Game 7s. The Lakers this year, LeBron is almost 40 years old and nobody wants to be No. 1 and play the Lakers in the first round.”
Even the normally unflappable Kendrick Perkins admitted to being scared of James.
“I got a confession,” he said.
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— Game 7 (@game7__) March 16, 2024
“We played the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2008 and it was a Game 7. We just had lost Game 6, and I ain’t going to lie, man. I was scared as hell going into that Game 7 against LeBron James. And this was the only time that I actually prayed that something happened to him at practice.”
Draymond Green, whose Golden State Warriors faced off against James for years, also said players were scared of him.
“I personally know people that were scared of LeBron James… I know a bunch of people who were and are in fact terrified of LeBron James,” Green noted.
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— Game 7 (@game7__) March 13, 2024
“I’ve seen it. At times I’ve had teammates that were terrified of LeBron James.”
So again, this whole thing is ridiculous.
O’Neal and Chalmers are either wrong or purposefully lying to be haters. But either way – plenty of players were afraid of James throughout his career.
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A graduate from the University of Texas, Anthony Amador has been credentialed to cover the Houston Texans, Dallas Cowboys, San Antonio Spurs, Dallas Mavericks and high school games all over the Lone Star State. Currently, his primary beats are the NBA, MLB, NFL and UFC.
