LeBron James didn’t win an NBA championship until he teamed up with Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade, and that’s a fact.
He was the best player on Earth at the time — also a fact — but had fallen short in the playoffs and couldn’t get the job done in the NBA Finals.
No one can win on his own, and it’s hard to blame him for that, even if he was the undisputed No. 1 guy in the league.
However, as evident as his need for a co-star was, his agent, Rich Paul, believes that the narrative of him needing the Miami Heat is false.
In his latest appearance on Gilbert Arenas’ Gil’s Arena, he claimed that it was a ‘shared need’ and that as good as the Heat organization was, LeBron was already a bonafide professional:
“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,” he said.
Of course, that makes sense, and the Heat wouldn’t have won those two rings without LeBron; that’s undeniable.
But Wade was already an NBA champion long before James took his talents to South Beach, and James drew plenty of criticism for his massive blunder in the NBA Finals against the Dallas Mavericks.
Media members, fans, and even some players ripped him for getting outplayed by Jason Terry and J.J. Barea.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with needing someone else to win a ring, and as much as Paul wants to save face for his client — which makes sense — that was the case with LeBron.
No one has won a championship on his own, not even Dirk Nowitzki with that seemingly subpar Mavericks team.
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