Comedian Aries Spears is on Team Michael Jordan when it comes to the GOAT debate, and he downplayed LeBron James‘ achievements during an interview with DJ Vlad. When Vlad suggested that James’ retiring with four NBA championships would be quite impressive, Spears pointed out his issues with three of those triumphs.
“One of them in the Bubble,” Spears said. “The other one, Ray Allen, saved you. Some could argue that Kyrie [Irving] saved you. Who saved Jordan?”
When Vlad brought up Scottie Pippen, Spears stated that a one-two punch is needed to win in the NBA. He wasn’t budging from his stance.
Spears isn’t the first to bring up these points, and he won’t be the last. So many of James’ detractors have made them as well.
Let’s start with the Bubble. With the COVID-19 pandemic rocking the entire world in 2020, the NBA chose to finish the 2019-20 season in a bio-secure bubble at Walt Disney World in Bay Lake, Florida. It was a unique setup and one that certain players struggled to deal with.
James and his Los Angeles Lakers didn’t fall into that category, though. They won the title by beating the Miami Heat in six games in the 2020 NBA Finals. It was a dominant title run, but the circumstances surrounding it have led to the achievement being discredited.
Jordan’s former Chicago Bulls teammate Ron Harper went as far as to call it a trash ring. That is incredibly unfair, though.
Every team had to go through the same circumstances, and the Lakers were the ones who dealt with it the best. They deserve credit for that. Austin Reaves claimed that the ring only gets discredited because James won it, and there might be some truth to that.
Four years prior to this triumph, James had orchestrated arguably the greatest comeback in NBA history. He and the Cleveland Cavaliers were down 3-1 to the 73-9 Golden State Warriors in the 2016 NBA Finals, but roared back to win in seven games.
James led both teams in points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks in those Finals, becoming the first player ever to pull off that feat in any playoff series. Despite that, some claim he was saved by Kyrie Irving.
Irving, of course, made one of the greatest clutch shots in NBA history in Game 7. The game was tied at 89 entering the final minute, and he drilled a three-pointer over Stephen Curry to give the Cavaliers a lead they would never relinquish. It was an iconic shot, but the notion that he saved James with it is ridiculous.
Lastly, we get to Ray Allen and the 2013 NBA Finals, and this is one instance where one can say that James got bailed out. His Heat squad found themselves in a must-win situation in Game 6 as they were down 3-2 to the San Antonio Spurs. The Spurs led by 10 points entering the fourth quarter and looked to be on their way to glory.
James, though, had other ideas. He scored 16 points in the fourth, and his heroics meant the Spurs’ lead stood at 95-92 with just under 20 seconds remaining. The Heat had the ball too, but James missed a three-pointer on the next possession, and all hope seemed lost for a moment.
Fortunately for the Heat, Chris Bosh managed to grab the offensive rebound and passed the ball to Allen, who drilled a three to tie the game. The Heat would go on to win in overtime and later won Game 7 as well to clinch the championship.
Would James have three titles today had Allen missed? Almost certainly, but one can’t ignore what he did in the lead-up to that miss. He almost single-handedly put his team in that position, and it is a bit unfair to just dismiss that title by claiming that Allen saved him.
It’s a shame that the only championship that James won, which people don’t try to minimize, is the first. He and Heat had beaten the Oklahoma City Thunder in five games in the 2012 NBA Finals, and there isn’t much anyone can say to downplay that.
