LeBron Was Challenged By John Tortorella To ‘Get His Ass Out Here’ And Try To Skate

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LeBron James is one of the most athletic human beings on the planet, and many like to wonder if one of the all-time NBA greats could excel at other sports based off of that athletic ability.

It’s a great sports bar and barbershop debate, and it usually lends itself to a discussion of whether LeBron could make it in the NFL or MLB if he put his mind to it. One sport you rarely hear as a sport LeBron could dominate at is hockey, but it’s one that was raised to Columbus Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella on Wednesday.

“Not a chance, he can’t skate,” Tortorella said to 92.3 The Fan in Cleveland.

When pressed and asked about if LeBron had grown up skating, Tortorella remained defiant.

“He’s too damn big, he can’t skate. And you can tell him I said that, I challenge him. Tell him to get his ass out here and come on the ice with us, I want to see him skate.”

Look, Tortorella is probably right and James probably isn’t a proficient skater, but there is a flaw in his argument that LeBron is too big to learn to skate because if 6’9, 250-pound Zdeno Chara can skate, then LeBron could skate if he wanted. I would love to see LeBron take him up on that challenge and we all find out he’s a beast on the ice. (But the entire Cavs front office would have a panic attack if they found out LeBron was trying to skate.)

Tortorella falls into the camp of people who assume that just because we haven’t seen LeBron do something that he can’t. I’m on the opposite side and fully believe that LeBron can do whatever he pleases athletically on this Earth and that he simply chooses not to until proven otherwise.

We know he can rock a baseball uniform, it’s not a big stretch to see him in hockey pads.

This is all just a longwinded way of getting to highlights of LeBron playing football:

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