John Stockton’s brutal dismantling of LeBron James’ GOAT case from last year has gone viral recently.
John Stockton explained last year why he thinks LeBron James‘ behavior on teams damages his GOAT case. In an interview clip from the DNP-CD Podcast that is now going viral, Stockton said he doesn’t like LeBron exerting so much control over the team and thinks his jumping from players and teams devalues the journey and hard work required to win a championship.
“I don’t know what it’s like to sit in that front office and have things dictating to you like a plan, and it appears LeBron is. I don’t know for sure that he is, but it appears so. I think it’d be maddening as a teammate to know that you can be expendable for one of his guys that he thinks he needs to play with.”
“The iffiness it causes with the team, the iffiness that it causes upstairs. I don’t like it either. I’ll bring up Michael Jordan here a little bit. We were a similar ilk with the Jazz. I like when guys just tighten their belts up and say ‘You know what? Let’s get to work, we just got to get better. Play harder, we got to play smarter’.”
“Instead of just ‘Huh, where is the grass greener, I’m going to go there and win a championship’. I think it devalues that. You’re not climbing the mountain, you’re taking the helicopter to the top of it. I’m not a fan of it, but who cares what I think.”
Stockton clearly feels that it isn’t just winning a championship in the NBA that is valuable, but also doing it the right way. The hard work and grind required to win a championship is just as essential as the championship itself for Stockton, which is why he gave such a scathing breakdown of James’ activity in the league.
