LeBron James: A self proclaimed GOAT that always wants help

LeBron James is the self-proclaimed greatest of all-time but always seems to need help to get over the top

The NBA postseason came to a close last week with the Toronto Raptors winning their first NBA Championship. Almost immediately after, the 2019 NBA offseason opened with a bang.

Over the weekend, the New Orleans Pelicans traded Anthony Davis to the Los Angeles Lakers for Josh Hard, Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, and three first-round picks.

This trade shouldn’t surprise anyone who follows the NBA since it was first talked about back in January when Davis announced that he was demanding a trade, citing that he would not sign a contract extension with New Orleans. It made for an uncomfortable situation for the Pelicans organization and an equally awkward situation for the Lakers.

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When a reported deal in February became public, it unsurprisingly made things uncomfortable in the team’s locker room. It reportedly had an immense impact on how the team performed towards the latter end of the season.

However, now that the trade has come to fruition, it raises a question about James that perhaps puzzles many NBA fans. The debate of who is the greatest player of all time is reduced to two players James, and Michael Jordan. There are others who should be in the conversation (i.e. Kobe, Kareem, Bird, Russell) but that’s another article for another day.

James himself believes he’s the GOAT. On an ESPN special “More Than an Athlete”, James said,

"“That’s what I felt. I was super, super ecstatic to win one for Cleveland because of the 52-year drought. Like, I was ecstatic. That day, the first wave of emotion was, everyone, saw me crying, that was all for 52 years of everything sports that have gone on in Cleveland. And after I stopped, I was like That one right there made you the greatest player of all time.”"

Question: Why does the GOAT continually feel the need to ask for help in order to win?

When taking a quick survey of some of the championship teams in NBA history, there’s a Batman and a Robin.

80s Celtics: Bird and McHale
90s Bulls: Jordan and Pippen
2000s Lakers: Shaq and Kobe.

Now, in all of these cases, these teams had a great collection of support players who contributed as starters or contributed significant roles off the bench.

But in each of these cases, the leader of these teams were not known to clamor for stars of other teams to help them win a championship. Larry Bird never begged Magic to come to Boston. Jordan never sought out Charles Barkley to join him in Chicago. Kobe never attempted to recruit Tim Duncan to spurn the Spurs for the Lakers.

Yet, the self-proclaimed GOAT has made it a habit of looking elsewhere in order to try and win.

Feeling dissatisfied with the roster in 2010, James left the Cleveland Cavaliers to join the Miami Heat. The Heat already featured Dwyane Wade along with free agent Chris Bosh to form a South Beach super team.

James eventually returned to the Cavaliers in 2015 and lead them to the championship in 2016. However, in January 2017, James, speaking to the media after the Cavs had lost for the fifth time in seven games said:

"“It’s like when you don’t have bodies. It’s tough,” James said. “The f—ing grind of the regular season. We’re a top-heavy team. We have a top-heavy team. We top-heavy as s—. It’s me, [Kyrie Irving], [Kevin Love]. It’s top-heavy.”"

For any Cavs player not named Irving or Love, this had to be insulting for other players on the team who may have felt slighted by these remarks.

No major harm was done, however, as the Cavaliers made it back to the Finals that season only to lose to the Golden State Warriors.

Now here we are and James has his wish of having Davis join him in Los Angeles. Only time will tell whether this trade will make the Lakers title contenders.

But to this point, it looks like James has never been able to be satisfied with whatever cards are dealt to him. He has shown that he himself can’t raise the play the supporting cast around him to bring them to the next level.

Even looking back at the 2016 Championship Cavaliers team, it was Irving, not James, who hit the eventual game-winning clutch shot to win Game 7.

There’s no doubt, James has an all-world talent. He will be a Hall-of-Famer. But it’s very difficult to buy into his self-proclaimed GOAT status. Particularly when the likes of Jordan, Kobe, David Robinson, and even Stephen Curry have been Batmans, who had Robins and never begged for a Wonder Woman to help put them over the top.