LeBron James has made it clear he’s still in championship mode as he weighs whether or not to leave Cleveland this offseason. While his family will be a major factor for what he does on a personal level, James wants his primary motivating factor on a professional level to be the pursuit of more rings.
You can make the case that going after rings, namely with the hope that he’d beat the Warriors to get them, is a bad idea. One such person who subscribes to this theory is Shaquille O’Neal, who understands first hand that trying to spend the end of your professional career accumulating championships isn’t necessarily the best idea.
In an interview with Ian Begley of ESPN, Shaq spoke about the end of his career, where he got “greedy” and “was trying to make quick stops to get [one last title].” For Shaq, this included stops in Phoenix, Cleveland, and Boston.
Now that he has the opportunity to look back on his career, Shaq thinks it’s important to share a story he heard with his former teammate about the desire to chase rings. It has to do with a player’s legacy and how ring chasing doesn’t necessarily matter.
“Somebody told me a long time ago — they said your book is already set [before the later stages of your career],” Shaq said, per ESPN. “You can add index pages toward the end, but your book is already set. So LeBron’s book is already set. He done already passed up legends; he done already made his mark — he has three rings. His mentality now is probably: I want to get four before [Golden State Warriors guard] Steph [Curry] does. That’s probably his mentality now. But if I was him, I wouldn’t be trying to get four, five and six because it ain’t going to matter. It’s just something else to talk about, something else to add to the pages. He’s a legend, talked about as who is the best between he and Michael Jordan, so he’s set.”
It’s an interesting approach from Shaq, one that clashes with the approach that many people have regarding a player’s greatness being tied to the number of rings they win over the course of their career. But he does have a good point — James is already being argued by some as the greatest basketball player of all time, and if people aren’t there yet, odds are they will concede that he’s in the conversation to take the title from Jordan.
Would more rings help James’ case as the best player ever? Perhaps. Legacies in sports are a hard thing to measure because everyone has different criteria they view are important. James seems to believe he needs to continue striving for championships, though, even if one of his former teammates thinks that isn’t necessary.
(Via ESPN)
