Richard Jefferson raised eyebrows with his recent comments regarding his former teammate LeBron James on the Road Trippin’ podcast. Jefferson stated that playing with James sucked because the expectation was always to win the championship, and their former teammate Iman Shumpert reacted to those comments on NBA Today.
“To give it context, the statement, yes, it does suck,” Shumpert said. “I’m going to say it for two reasons. I’m going to piggyback off Richard’s statement in saying there’s a ridiculous amount of pressure that comes with it because you have to be in a win-now mindset every time you play on his team.
“I don’t know why it’s chopped up like that, but he is always expected to be at the top of the league, to win a championship,” Shumpert continued. “He’s gonna provide enough for you guys to get in there and make a difference. You have to be able to say now, in this time that I’m playing with LeBron, can I sacrifice? If I was scoring 20 a game somewhere else, now it needs to be 12 a game.”
Shumpert, who played alongside James on the Cleveland Cavaliers from 2015 to 2018, was asked if he had experienced that personally. He stated he had and brought up his conversations with then-Cavaliers head coach Tyronn Lue.
“I’ve had my time with T-Lue where I got off, [had] a great playoff game,” Shumpert stated. “I’m really shooting it well, I’m like, next game I know we about to run some plays for sure. [Lue said], ‘Absolutely not, Shump. We’re glad we made it out of Game 2. Go sit in the corner, knock that shot down, keep defending like a madman, but we don’t need you to score.’
“I think it was a hard pill for me to swallow as a player, to hear that when I’m young and trying to get my stuff off,” Shumpert added. “I’m like, ‘Man, I really want to get better and take that next jump in this league.’”
Shumpert revealed that Lue told him he had to put the team’s interests before his own. It would feel good to win awards like Player of the Month or Most Improved Player, but neither of those would compare to winning a championship.
Shumpert would end up winning a title with James and the Cavaliers in 2016. He averaged just 3.3 points, 2.2 rebounds, 0.8 assists, 0.5 steals, and 0.1 blocks per game in that playoff run. Shumpert could potentially have put up bigger numbers elsewhere, where he wasn’t told to just stand in the corner and defend, but then he might not be a champion today.
At the end of the day, there are pros and cons to playing with an icon like James, who is always expected to win. You get a chance to experience some great highs, but at the same time, there is a lot of sacrifice involved. You are under a lot of pressure, too, but as they say, pressure is a privilege.
Getting back to Jefferson, he also spoke about how James treats his teammates in that episode. He stated that if you gain his trust, he will stand by you till the very end.
