- LeBron James won two titles with the Miami Heat in 2012 and 2013
- The Heat have been credited with making LeBron the player he is today and showing him how to win
- LeBron’s agent and good friend Rich Paul blasted that narrative
Rich Paul has had enough of one of the narratives that surround his good friend, and client, LeBron James. The CEO of Klutch Sports recently made an appearance on Gil’s Arena, where he pushed back at the notion that LeBron needed the Miami Heat.
“The narrative of, ‘OK, he went to Miami and they made him this way,'” Paul said. “What? Now, what did help was infrastructure, consistency, professionalism – which LeBron’s always had – that’s no question about that. But I’m saying overall, from a culture perspective, right? Organization, which was all great.”
The Heat have been a first-class organization, and they gave LeBron a platform where he was best suited to have success. It was aligned with the way he himself went about doing things, which is why they were a great match.
“But, to create this narrative of, he needed somebody,” Paul continued. “No, it’s a shared need. ‘Because if I don’t go there, what are you talking about?’ If you ask anybody in the Heat organization – at least me did – they’ll tell you how much they still appreciate it. You get what I’m saying? But the narrative, from the media perspective, was something totally different.”
“They made him this way…What?”
Rich Paul talks about the narrative that the Heat made LeBron into the player he became. pic.twitter.com/uqD4pijyYf
— Gil’s Arena (@GilsArenaShow) September 4, 2023
It was very much a shared need. Sure, his time with a top organization with the Heat would have taught LeBron a lot, but they weren’t doing anything without him either. Miami for all its great culture, and the way they ran things, wasn’t going to win it all without a talent like LeBron.
In his four seasons with the Heat from 2010 to 2014, James went to the NBA Finals all four times and won back-to-back titles in 2012 and 2013. He finished his Heat career with excellent averages of 26.9 points, 7.6 rebounds, 6.7 assists, 1.7 steals, and 0.7 blocks per game.
Stephen A. Smith Believes LeBron Wouldn’t Know What It Takes To Win Without Dwyane Wade
Stephen A. Smith is one of the many in the media who have used the narrative that Paul is talking about. Smith claimed LeBron wouldn’t know what it’s like to be a champion without Dwyane Wade.
Smith added that James owes his championship pedigree to Wade. In the media at least, Wade has often been credited with teaching LeBron how to win, as he had won a championship with the Heat in 2006.
LeBron, meanwhile, had failed to get over the line in seven seasons with the Cleveland Cavaliers, after they selected him with the first pick in the 2003 NBA Draft. It is what made him decide to go to the Heat in free agency in 2010.
There’s no doubt that Wade’s guidance would have helped James, but we can’t really say for sure how much it did. If you ask Paul, the whole thing is fairly overblown, but there are many who would disagree with him.
Rich Paul Spoke About LeBron’s Bubble Championship
This talk about LeBron and the Heat isn’t the only one that Paul has an issue with.
James led the Los Angeles Lakers to the championship in the Bubble in 2020, but his detractors have played down that accomplishment a lot. We often hear about that title needing an asterisk next to it because it was in the Bubble.
Paul believes Stephen Curry wouldn’t be discredited like LeBron has been for the Bubble championship, as he insinuated there is a double standard with how the two superstars are treated.
Well, we’ll never find out for sure whether Curry would have been discredited or not. I’d say anyone who would have won it would have had to deal with talk of asterisks, but because it was LeBron, the whole thing just got amplified a bit more.
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