Iman Shumpert appeared on the latest episode of The Big Podcast with Shaq where he was asked if Stephen Curry ruined today’s NBA with the three-point shot. Shumpert doesn’t believe Curry is the one to blame for the state of today’s game and instead points the finger at his former teammate LeBron James.
“The person that ruined all of this was Bron,” Shumpert said. “… It’s like (Michael Jordan). If Mike would have made it okay for y’all to just be like, ‘Yeah, I’m leaving this team, and I’m going to another ’cause I don’t like what the owners are saying’—if Mike would have did that, there would have been no loyalty.
“‘Cause we all, quote-unquote, wanted to be like Mike, right?” Shumpert continued. “… I felt like Bron was the guy that did it. I felt like when Bron made it okay for people to team up, it stopped making the star player have to come back with something added to their game.”
That’s an interesting way to look at this. James, of course, infamously joined forces with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh on the Miami Heat in 2010 to form a superteam. While superteams had existed in the NBA long before this team-up, what made this different was that it was the first time that three players in their primes had decided they were going to join forces.
Bill Russell’s Boston Celtics, Magic Johnson’s Los Angeles Lakers, Larry Bird’s Celtics, Tim Duncan’s San Antonio Spurs, and the Big 3 Celtics of the late 2000s are some notable superteams that came before the Heat but they were all formed by the front offices via trades and the draft. The players weren’t the ones pulling the strings.
When a great player did decide to join forces with another in the past, it would often be when they were past their prime and desperately looking to win a ring before they walked away from the game. So, what James did was something that hadn’t really happened before, and his doing it made it acceptable for others to do it, too.
Stars joining forces and creating superteams became almost the norm in the years that followed. Former players and many fans hate the superteam culture that exists in the NBA today and LeBron is the one who gets the blame for creating it.
Iman Shumpert Believes LeBron James Is The GOAT
While Shumpert believes James is responsible for ruining today’s NBA, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t respect his former Cleveland Cavaliers teammate. Shumpert stated that while Michael Jordan is the greatest competitor, LeBron is the GOAT.
“I just put him, I told you Shorty, he just passed Mike [Jordan] on my list for the greatest. I get it, the greatest competitor to me is always going to be Mike. But as far as the GOAT, we talk about the greatest, we talk about what our minds should think of when we think of an NBA basketball player. Put Bron on the screen, Shorty. This is a mindset I’ve never seen.”
Shumpert had previously sided with Jordan in the GOAT debate but changed his mind last year. He now believes James is the one deserving of that title and a growing number are starting to believe that too. The Los Angeles Lakers star has an incredible resume, with four titles, four Finals MVPs, four MVPs, a scoring title, and an assists title, and could well win more before he walks away.
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