LeBron James appeared on ‘The Shop’ with British actor Damson Idris and musical artist Tems where he broke down his approach to basketball in the clutch, revealing how the game slows down for him even though he’s still trying to read and react to opposition defenses to manufacture the perfect play.
“What’s going on in my head? Like you said it’s in slow motion, I slow it down as well. It’s just about trying to be patient, not trying to be over-exertive or try to pre-determine what I’m going to do.”
“It’s still read and react, even with the clock going 9, 8, 7, 6. If you look at a stopwatch, those seconds are ticking, like they’re going fast. But for some odd reason on the basketball court for myself, when the time looks like it’s going fast, it’s actually slowing down for me.”
“So, I’m able to just slow it down and be able to see what’s going on on the floor. Does that always result in a make? No, I wish it would go in every single time. But I try to put myself in a position to make the right play or come home for the team every single time. That just comes with experience, the best teacher in life is experience. The more you get those moments, the better off you’ll be.”
(Start at 22:24)
James has received a lot of criticism over his career for not unilaterally taking the final shot of the game, regardless of coverage. Both Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant wouldn’t approach basketball with James’ IQ, which led to them taking and making impossible shots to win games.
James gets criticized because he knows he’ll draw multiple defenders, which leaves one of his teammates open to convert an easier shot. More often than not, the role-players around him would fail to deliver, prompting more criticism of James as someone afraid to take the last shot in a game.
Despite these narratives, James has been the leader in Playoff clutch shots over the last 30 years, with an impressive highlight reel of game-ending shots and moments created solely by LeBron.
Nitpicking James for prioritizing team success in a team sport is odd, but he’s living up to an example set by players like Kobe or Jordan, who didn’t care how many impossible shots they missed because they knew they were the only ones who could attempt such shots with a chance at making it.
Skip Bayless Called Bronny More Clutch Than LeBron James
The biggest critic of LeBron’s clutch gene is Skip Bayless, who has relentlessly torn LeBron down at every stop of his career. Even with the occasion of LeBron and Bronny James becoming the first father-son duo to become teammates in the NBA, Bayless decided to drag LeBron down by using his son as an example of a more clutch player.
“I think Bronny will be pretty good. I think he’ll become a clutch three-point shooter. I’ve always gotten the feeling that Bronny had a bigger clutch gene than his father does. McDonald’s game, he was in the spotlight and they went to him late two or three times and he just nailed threes.”
There’s nothing that even remotely indicates that Bronny is more clutch than his dad, so this was an insane take. Everyone’s excited to see LeBron and Bronny on the court together, but nobody is waiting for Bronny to show off his clutch factor over his father by taking the final shot of a game.
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