NBA legend Tim Hardaway Sr., who spent most of his career on the Warriors (1989-1996) and the Heat (1996-2001), is promoting his new book, ‘Killer Crossover,’ and appeared on the Run It Back Show by FanDuel to discuss it with Chandler Parsons, Lou Williams, and Michelle Beadle.
In his conversation with the crew, they asked him his personal list of the top five players in all time in the NBA’s history. Parsons pointed out that the older players he has recently spoken to did not have LeBron James in their lists.
“I tell you this, everybody’s top five is different. And it’s no disrespect to LeBron James. LeBron, I’m gonna tell you this, playing at 41 and doing what he’s doing at 41 and flying around the court.”
“And he’s talking about how he was, you know, they made him the third option. He was a number two option, at times the number one option,” said Tim Hardway Jr, addressing the recent comments from James about being put in a difficult spot as the third option.
“So I mean what he has done, I mean, is very, very remarkable,” Tim Hardaway Sr. said in his initial remarks on why older players don’t have LeBron James in their list of top five players of all time.
“But I mean, you got Michael, I still say Kobe, I still say Magic, you know, and I still say Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and then you know, then you go from there. You know, you got Hakeem Olajuwon, you got Shaquille O’Neal, you know, you can pick whoever you want,” the NBA veteran said, naming six players ahead of LeBron James on his own list.
Hardaway Sr. tried to explain why most older players do not rank James highly on their list of the top five NBA players of all time.
“But I think these guys who you were talking about, they go by championships, and they go by, you know, the killer tenacity that these guys had. Like Magic, Michael, Kareem, Kobe, they had killer instinct, you know, they came out, and they didn’t let their team wielder them, they gave their team confidence.”
The Warriors veteran further explained by comparing LeBron James to James Harden’s playoff reputation.
“And I think at times, you know, LeBron, I love LeBron. I’m a LeBron fan, but at times he doesn’t, you know, bring it the way we want him to bring it, you know, like James Harden. We want James Harden to bring it. We know what he can do. We want to see that.”
“We like, ‘Come on, James. We need this game. I want to see you take over this game.’ And then sometimes he’s like, you know, [signals not up to expectations], and that’s the way we feel with LeBron at times. That’s all.”
Harden, before his elite performance in Game 5 of the Pistons–Cavaliers series, was struggling to find rhythm on the offensive end of the floor in the 2026 NBA playoffs. There’s a reason why, despite being one of the greatest scorers in NBA history, the 36-year-old Harden has not won a championship yet.
Do you think the older players are being a bit too harsh on LeBron James? In his 23-year NBA career, he has missed the playoffs only four times, and in the 19 years he went to the playoffs, he has only come back with four championships, coming up short six times in his runs to the NBA Finals as well.
If you put it like that, it seems like older players might not be wrong here. Do you agree? Let us know what you think in the comments section.
